On Monday, March 15, the Center for Inquiry submitted an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez .  CFI argued that religious student organizations do not have the constitutional right to violate public colleges' non-discrimination policies. 

The case concerns a student chapter of the Christian Legal Society (CLS) at the University of California, Hastings College of Law.  CLS sued the school after being denied official recognition and funding because the student group excluded non-Christian, gay and lesbian students, in violation of the school's non-discrimination policy.  That policy requires that student groups can receive funding and official recognition only if they are open to all students. 

A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled unanimously against CLS because the school's policy prohibited every student group, whether religious or secular, from excluding students that disagree with the group's mission.  CLS appealed that decision, claiming that it had a constitutional right -- not enjoyed by any secular organizations -- to receive state funding while discriminating against students on the basis of religion and sexual orientation.  

CFI argued that student groups that want to exclude certain classes of students should not demand school subsidies and official recognition.  CFI further argued that the school's non-discrimination does not impose any substantial burden on the student organization's free speech rights.  CLS members are still permitted to use school facilities without official recognition and funding from the school.  Moreover, if CLS had abided by the school's non-discrimination policy, it would have received school funding and would not have been prevented from expressing its views about religion and homosexuality.

CFI's brief also argued that religious organizations do not have a constitutional right to special exemptions from generally applicable regulations.  CFI urged the Supreme Court to reject the student organization's "invitation to ignore an unbroken line of precedent denying groups exemptions from generally applicable laws based solely on [the group's] religious beliefs."

CFI's brief was drafted by Carmine D. Boccuzzi, Jorge G. Tenreiro, Benjamin N. Brust and Justin L. Ormand at the New York City firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, with input from attorneys at CFI.  Click here to access an electronic (.pdf) copy of the brief.

These alarming developments are the latest in a series of attacks on freedom of expression in the name of protecting religion.  The Center for Inquiry's international representatives have drafted the statement below in support of Dr. Narisetti.  CFI intends to lobby the appropriate officials within India and at Indian embassies. We will continue to monitor Dr. Narisetti's case, and will post updates here.

The Center for Inquiry and its branches around the world strongly protest the treatment of our colleague, Dr. Innaiah Narisetti, a volunteer representative for CFI in India.

Based on information from Dr. Narisetti, it appears that the Indian police searched his home and arrested him in connection with the publication of a book critical of Islam. Dr. Narisetti maintains that the police filed false reports against him, that the police lacked a search warrant and an arrest warrant, and that he neither wrote nor published the book in question.

We appeal to the Indian government officials to put an end to these apparent efforts of intimidation and censorship. They can begin by providing legal and personal protection to Dr. Narisetti, and dismiss all legal charges against him and any others connected with this case.

We condemn anti-blasphemy laws and the direct threat they pose to the guarantees of freedom of speech and belief found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We also urge the international community to condemn this apparent perversion of the Indian legal system, which makes a mockery of the concept of the just state and its responsibility to its citizens.

We will continue to closely monitor the situation in India and the protection and safety of Dr. Innaiah Narisetti and the right of freedom of expression.

Signed

Dr. Ronald A. Lindsay, President and CEO, Center for Inquiry
Derek C. Araujo, Vice President and General Counsel

Dr. Paul Kurtz, Founder of CFI and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy,
State University of Buffalo, N.Y.

Fundatia Centrul pentru Constiinta Critica
CFI Romania
J. Beth Ciesielski and Dr. Gabriel Andreescu

Ian Figueroa Baltazar
CFI Philippines

Dr. Jugal Kishore
CFI New Delhi, India

Professor Nadel Niang
CFI Senegal, West Africa

Armedeo Sarma
CFI Germany, GWUP German (Skeptics),
ECSO European Skeptics Organization

Andrzej Dominiczak
CFI Poland

Hugo Estrella
CFI Italy

Floris van den Berg and Annemarieke Otten,
CFI Low Countries, Netherlands

Stephen Law
London

Suresh Lalvani
London

"The defectors say Sea Org members were repeatedly beaten by the church's chairman, David Miscavige, often during planning meetings; pressured to have abortions; forced to work without sleep on little pay; and held incommunicado if they wanted to leave. The church says the defectors are lying."

Read more here .

According to the Guardian , a nun who claimed that the deceased Pope John Paul II cured her of Parkinson's disease has fallen ill again. 
Three years ago Sister Marie Simon-Pierre described how she regained her health after a night of prayer to the Pope, who had already died. According to Sister Simon-Pierre, after writing John Paul's name on a paper with a trembling hand, she awakened the next day cured of Parkinson's disease.

But the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita reports that one of the doctors charged with examining the nun's claims thought she might have suffered from a different, but similar nervous disease, which could go into sudden remission. A report on the paper's website further stated that the nun had become sick again with the same illness.

The Vatican has issued no comment on the grounds that the John Paul's case was still under examination.  According to the Guardian, the Vatican has been under "relentless pressure" to expedite John Paul's canonization. "On the day of his funeral in 2005 there were unparalleled scenes in St Peter's Square, when the crowd took up a chant of 'santo subito', or 'saint straightaway'."

The Scientologists have hired Steve Weinberg, the former executive director of non-profit Investigative Reporters and Editors; Russell Carollo, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for a series of articles on medical malpractice in the U.S. military; and Christopher Szechenyi, an Emmy-winning former TV producer of "60 Minutes."  Weinberg told the Washington Post he was paid $5,000 to edit a study of the Times and "tried to make sure it's a good piece of journalism criticism, just like I've written a gazillion times."  Weinberg stated that his agreement with the church requires that the church publish the study in full -- IF it decides to make it public.  But "the contract says the church has the right to do nothing with it except put it in a drawer."  Scientology leaders therefore can choose not to release the report if its conclusions are not to their liking.

The St. Petersburg Times has refused to cooperate with the reporters' investigation, saying the church will use its findings in an ongoing campaign against the paper.  Executive Editor Neil Brown told the Washington post that "I ultimately couldn't take this request very seriously because it's a study bought and paid for by the Church of Scientology. . . . I was surprised and disappointed that journalists who I understand to have an extensive background in investigative reporting would think it's appropriate to ask me or our news organization to talk about that reporting while (a) it's ongoing, and (b) while they're being paid to ask these questions by the very subjects of our reporting."

Microchips that store medical data have been used in pets for years.  Some have argued that microchips, for those who choose to use them, would greatly improve medical care by making a patient's medical history instantly accessible by physicians; the FDA approved the technology for human use in 2004.  Forcing patients to undergo chip implants would be a terrible violation of privacy, and would almost certainly violate the federal constitution.  But no one, of course, has ever proposed forcibly implanting microchips in anybody.

Democratic delegate Bob Brink called the bill "a solution in search of a problem."   "As I went door to door, there were a number of issues that never came up. I didn't hear anything about the danger of an asteroid striking the earth or about the menace of forced implantation of microchips in humans," said Brink.

Other evangelical Christians believe that Social Security Numbers may be the dreaded "mark of the beast."  As reported by the Daily Beast (no connection to "the beast"), 89% of evangelical Protestants believe in the devil, while 25% of Americans have heard rumors that Barack Obama is the Antichrist; last September, a poll of New Jersey Republicans found that 14% thought Obama was the Antichrist, while 15% "weren't sure."  Those 15% might be congratulated for exhibiting a dose of healthy skepticism.

Right wingers were quick to defend Focus on the Family.  For example, through her Facebook profile, Sarah Palin urged CBS to "just do the right thing.  Don't cave.  Have the backbone to run the ad."

Although I object to the substance of Focus on the Family's message, I have no problem in principle with CBS's decision to air the advertisement.  In a nation that values Free Speech, the response to speech one dislikes is to answer it with more speech.  Censorship is for tyrants and autocrats.

The problem, however, is that CBS has effectively muzzled speech by rejecting ads for progressive organizations.  In 2004 CBS rejected a 30-second ad by MoveOn.org President Bush , which Salon called "a low-key attack on Bush's fiscal irresponsibility that's unlikely to make anyone very angry."  That same year, CBS turned down the United Church of Christ when it wanted to air a Super Bowl ad that celebrated diversity and welcomed gay and lesbian Christians to the denomination.  Last week, CBS rejected a commercial for a gay dating site called ManChrunch.com.  As Super Bowl commercials go, the commercial is rather tame.  It depicts two men excitedly watching the game; their hands brush as they reach for a bowl of chips; suddenly, the two begin kissing, much to the shock of the guy sitting next to them. The New York Post concluded that the ad is "no more racy than nearly any beer commercial not starring the Budweiser Clydesdales."  (You can watch it for yourself here .)

CBS has reasoned that it would not air ads where "substantial elements of the community [are] in opposition to one another."  Yet the Focus on the Family ad would appear to be at least as divisive and politically charged as ads that CBS has refused to air in the past. CBS's ideological bias is a reminder that speech can hardly be free when it is subject to the arbitrary decisions of those who control access to the media.

Read CFI's letter to CBS's executives about the Focus on the Family ad on our Office of Public Policy web site .

The majority in Grayson focused on the context of the Ten Commandments display, emphasizing that it appeared alongside eight other documents, purportedly installed in the courthouse to illustrate the documents' historical legal importance. Alongside the Ten Commandments, the display included the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Star Spangled Banner, among other documents. The majority concluded that the ACLU had failed to prove that the county had a primarily religious purpose in approving the display, and that an objective observer would not view the display as a government endorsement of religion.

In her lone dissent, Judge Karen Nelson Moore stated that the County's asserted purpose for posting the display - "that the Display was posted for educational or historical reasons - is a sham and should be rejected." She concluded that the county's purpose in erecting the display was religious, and that in the context of the record of its adoption by the county, the display unmistakably sent a message of endorsement of religion. Judge Moore cited the minutes from a Grayson County Fiscal Court meeting, in which a local reverend, Chester Shartzer, asked the county to place "the Ten Commandments" in county buildings; Reverend Shartzer's statement that "the Civil Liberties [sic] will look more favorable [sic] toward [hanging the Ten Commandments] if they were hanging in a grouping with other historical documents"; and "an extensive commentary by the Reverend Shartzer about the need for the Display," the contents of which the Fiscal Court failed to record. According to Judge Moore, this record shows that the additional eight documents in the display are mere window dressing, placed to convey the illusion that the county's predominant purpose in erecting the Ten Commandments display was secular.

Does anyone believe, at this time and in the context of American culture wars over religious symbolism, that religious individuals and organizations are not promoting government endorsement of religion by pushing for Ten Commandments displays in government buildings? In a nation where a powerful Religious Right attempts to bury America's secular heritage by citing an imagined privileged historical status for Christianity, where an influential Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court says that the Ten Commandments are "a symbol of the fact that government derives its authority from God," and where another Justice reminisces fondly about seeing "a flag and a crucifix in each classroom," can anyone believe that courthouse displays admonishing us to worship the Judeo-Christian God and to keep the Sabbath holy are meant as a mere secular "acknowledgment of history"? Two out of three judges deciding this case think so. Increasingly, other federal judges are agreeing with them.

Welcome to the world of church-state jurisprudence in the post-Bush era. Yes, we have a new president and a new Congress. Eight years of lifetime judicial appointments by George W. Bush, however, have left us a lopsided, rightward-lurching federal judiciary that has little patience for Establishment Clause challenges. A little less than five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court handed a victory to defenders of church-state separation in McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky , a case challenging a courthouse display that was virtually identical to that challenged in the Grayson case. Unfortunately, that Supreme Court was very different from the Supreme Court George W. Bush left us. Stunningly, the 6th Circuit's ruling in Grayson marks the second time the court has approved a courthouse Ten Commandments display virtually identical to the one the Supreme Court ruled unconsitutional.

The plaintiffs in the Grayson case are deciding whether to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. If they do, they will almost surely lose, now that the arch-conservative Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. has replaced the retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Liberty Counsel, the attorneys for Grayson County, surely hope for the current Supreme Court to accept such an appeal. Shortly after the 6th Circuit issued its decision, Liberty Counsel circulated a press release urging supporters to "Pray that the Lord continues to bless Liberty Counsel as we continue to battle the ACLU in other cases."

Just one day before New Year's Eve, the defendants in the case filed an appeal of the panel's decision.  They argue that the entire fifteen-member Court of Appeal should rehear the case en banc .  Today the Council filed briefs in opposition to that motion, arguing that the case should finally have its day in court.

The defendants' tactics illustrate two things.  First, they are prepared to use all of their resources to fight the Council at every step to prevent this case from ever being tried.  Second, they think the case is important.

As I explained in my last blog on the subject , the Council and co-plaintiffs Richard and Elaine Hull initially filed suit in in Florida state court challenging the legality of statutes authorizing government payments to faith-based organizations for social services. The two faith-based organizations in question, Prisoners of Christ, Inc. and Lamb of God Ministries, Inc., have contracted with the Florida Department of Corrections to provide faith-based services to individuals with substance abuse problems. The Hulls, two associate members of the Council, are Tallahassee residents and Florida taxpayers.

The Council based its complaint on the Florida Constitution, not the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. The Council made a deliberate decision to seek relief under the Florida Constitution, because it has a very broad prohibition on aid to religious institutions. Specifically, the "No-Aid" provision of the Florida Constitution expressly mandates that no revenue of the state can be provided "directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution."

CSH v. McNeil could be an important test of state courts' willingness to enforce "No-Aid" provisions in state constitutions.  Can faith-based ministries legally bar defenders of religious liberty from challenging their use of Florida taxpayer dollars?  We may not know for some time.  Even if the Council successfully opposes the defendants' motion for a rehearing, I have every expectation that the defendants will muster all of their resources for an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

Click here for more information and access to CSH's court filings.

According to the New York Times , Nazli Parvizi, the mayor's commissioner of the Community Affairs Unit, decided to invite the nonbelievers because she was inspired by her own sense of fairness, as well as by the prominent reference to America's nonbelievers in President Obama's inauguration speech.  Ms. Parvizi, who is herself an atheist, told the Times: "I always do my best to make sure every group is represented . . . I guess all these times I've ignored my own religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs, and so we reached out to atheist societies."

Parvizi further elaborated: "We reach out to clergy all the time, and the point is these are groups of folks who are really trusted by the community . . . It's not about a religious message; it's about a message in community-building."  According to Parvizi, none of the religious guests at the breakfast seemed to mind the atheists' involvement.

Cosmopolitan New York City, with its bustling mix of creeds, cultures and ethnicities, is often recognized as an exemplar of the social melting pot.  At the same time, New York has often been at the forefront of changes in national cultural trends.  Mayor Bloomberg's embrace of the community of nonbelievers could be dismissed as a quirky occurrence in an exceptional American city.  Then again, it might be the sign of a welcome change in American political life.