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| | Religious Freedom Restoration Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
 | | The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was a 1993 act by the United States Congress aimed at preventing laws which substantially burdened a person's free exercise of their religion. | | | This interpretation is due to be tested in the 2005-2006 Supreme Court term as the court will hear a case, Gonzales v. | | | However, most scholars believe RFRA still applies to Federal acts (the US Congress can modify the interpretation of their own laws, after all) and a number of states have passed so-called mini-RFRAs, applying the rule to the laws of their own state. |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freedom_Restoration_Act
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| | Prentice Hall Documents Library: Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993) |
| | The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 was intended to restore the compelling interest test previously applicable to free exercise cases by requiring that government actions that substantially burden the exercise of religion be demonstrated to be the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest. | | | The legislative response to the Smith decision is H.R. 1308, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. | | | But to agree that religiously grounded conduct must often be subject to the broad police power of the State is not to deny that there are areas of conduct protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and thus beyond the power of the State to control, even under regulations of general applicability. |
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http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/burns3/medialib/docs/rfra.htm
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| | The Religious Freedom Restoration Act and Prisoners'Rights |
| | Under RFRA, any state action that places a substantial burden upon religious freedomsmust be in furtherance of a "compelling state interest." Therefore, only regulations based onpenal concerns of the highest order could outweigh an inmate's claims. | | | However, to prove a violation of RFRA a plaintiff must show that his exercise ofreligious rights has been "substantially burdened." Since neither "religion" nor "substantialburden" are defined by RFRA, recent court decisions have examined pre-enactment precedent tohelp define these two terms. | | | That some adherents choose to follow certain tenets of a religion in a mannerdifferent than the majority does not alter the genuine character of the religious tenet or theimportance to the adherent of the manner in which he or she follows the tenet. |
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http://www.aleph-institute.org/html/rfra.html
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| | Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 |
| | Because the Church members' use of peyote during the religious ceremony was prohibited under Oregon law, and because that prohibition is constitutional, the Court held that the State may deny UC when job dismissal results from use of illegal drugs. | | | The Court stated that any infringement on religious belief must be subjected to strict scrutiny and could only be justified by proof of a compelling State interest. | | | By so deciding, the Court thus weakened the requirement that the government justify burdens on religious exercise imposed by laws neutral toward religion, and severely limited the situations in which the "compelling governmental interest" test may serve as a workable means test for striking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests. |
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http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/dmstree/uipl/uipl94/uipl_2894.htm
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| | AVAILABILITY OF MONEY DAMAGES UNDER THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT |
| | Section 3(c) of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which makes available "appropriate relief" in judicial proceedings against federal and state government entities, does not waive or abrogate the sovereign immunity of federal and state governments against the award of money damages. | | | Section 3(c) provides that "[a] person whose religious exercise has been burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government." "Government" is defined in § 5(1) of RFRA to include both the United States and state governments. | | | RFRA's definition of a "government" from which "appropriate relief" may be obtained extends also to state "subdivisions," to "officials," and to "other person[s] acting under color of law." RFRA § 5(1). |
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http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/damages.htm
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| | Supreme Court Strikes Down Religious Freedom Restoration Act |
| | Under legal scrutiny by the court was the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed by Congress in response to a 1990 high court ruling known as Employment Div., Dept. Of Human Resources of Regon v. | | | Religious advocacy groups across the country reacted with indignation and sadness over yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling which found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was unconstitutional. | | | RFRA also attracted the support of unlikely and divergent organizations, including the Traditional Values Coalition, People for the American Way, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Christian Legal Society, which has been instrumental in crafting the Religious Freedom Amendment proposed by Mr. |
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http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/rfra1.htm
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| | Christian Century: Religion's search - Religious Freedom Restoration Act |
| | Religious conduct has received relatively more and less protection in our history, but it has never been the case that governments must tailor every law--from fire regulations to zoning laws to prison rules--to the needs of every religious believer, which is what RFRA required. | | | Religious groups are promising to pressure state legislatures, to attempt more narrowly tailored federal law and even various constitutional amendments. | | | Although religious leaders appeared to be representing scores of votes as they lobbied Congress, most people never even grasped that RFRA was a radical shift in the constitutional standard to be applied to religious practice. |
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http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_n20_v114/ai_19651872
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| | Strict scrutiny in religious freedom cases isn't much of a test--and that's good in a way, because the common-law decision making I praise is a system in which judges are free to come up with their own tests, subject to legislative revision. | | | The statute authorizes courts to look to religious exemption law developed both by courts and by legislatures in all jurisdictions. | | | RFRA purported to require religious exemptions from all state and federal laws unless the laws passed strict scrutiny; as its name suggests, RFRA was billed as a way to reinstate by statute the old constitutional exemption regime. |
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http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/relfree.htm
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| | Reviving the Religious Freedom Restoration Act - February 1998 Issue of St. Anthony Messenger Magazine Online |
| | Religious freedom in this country is sometimes referred to as "the first liberty." Many of those who immigrated to the United States came seeking the right to practice religion as they chose. | | | RFRA prohibited government (federal, state, local) from burdening a person's free exercise of a "substantial" religious belief or a religiously motivated practice, unless the government has a compelling interest and can show that it is employing the least restrictive means to achieve that compelling interest. | | | Yet even though civil law and religious practice were generally the same, problems arose such as requiring Quakers to take oaths to testify or hold office or to serve in the military. |
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http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Feb1998/feature1.asp
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| | Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 |
| | (a) Judicial Proceedings: Section 722 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 1988) is amended by inserting 'the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993,' before 'or title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964'. | | | (a) In General.--This Act applies to all Federal and State law, and the implementation of that law, whether statutory or otherwise, and whether adopted before or after the enactment of this Act. | | | Nothing in this Act shall be construed to affect, interpret, or in any way address that portion of the First Amendment prohibiting laws respecting the establishment of religion (referred to in this section as the 'Establishment Clause'). |
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http://webpages.ull.es/users/mbarral/RFRA1993.html
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| | Religious Freedom Restoration Act |
| | A survey of court cases decided after RFRA’s enactment demonstrated that the new law did make a difference in protecting religious freedom. | | | The best solution to protect religious freedom would be for the legislature to pass a joint resolution to amend the state constitution. | | | By declaring RFRA unconstitutional, the Supreme Court opened up the possibility that our religious freedoms might be seriously curtailed. |
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http://www.familyfirst.net/pressroom/rfra.asp
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| | FindLaw's Writ - Hamilton: George W. Bush And The Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act |
| | According to the RFRA, the general law may not be applied to the religious entity unless the government can prove that its law was passed to serve a compelling interest, and that the law is the least restrictive means of achieving the government’s purpose. | | | Religious entities and some scholars immediately attacked the 1990 decision as the "end of religious liberty." And the decision sparked the formation of the Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion, a union of civil rights and religious organizations that drafted the federal RFRA and lobbied heavily for it. | | | Thus, the ACLU enthusiastically supported the federal RFRA for years, until it became evident beyond a doubt that one of the agendas underlying the RFRAs was to permit certain religious individuals to trump the fair housing laws by discriminating against renters on the basis of marital status and sexual orientation. |
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http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20001026.html
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| | WINDS - Religious Freedom Restoration Act Challenged by Catholic Church |
| | In such cases where it was necessary to restrict certain religious freedoms due to an obvious detriment to society, the "least restrictive" means must be employed. | | | In short, the result of enacting RFRA was to give the government a precedent and opportunity for restricting religious liberty rather than broadening it--a neat little trick to establish, forever, a "viable" challenge to any freedom of religion that gets in the way of the government's agenda of absolute control of the citizenry. | | | Such statements by a Supreme Court Justice that "increasing religious diversity" is sufficient cause for re-interpreting the First Amendment in a more restrictive manner is an unsettling exposition on the erosion of the Bill of Rights. |
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http://www.apfn.org/THEWINDS/archive/religion/a050297d.html
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| | Prisoner Cases Decided Under The Religious Freedom Restoration Act |
| | The Hamilton court also dealt with the issue of religious dress, which is another area in which RFRA has been frequently used as the basis for a prisoner's complaint. | | | The court found that prison officials failed to show that forbidding the outdoor construction of a sweat lodge and fire pit that was required for Native American worship and religious ceremonies was the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling government interest of safety, security, and cost in the prison setting. | | | Beyer, 1994 WL 549614, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey refused to grant a preliminary injunction to the plaintiff claiming a proposed transfer would violate the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause because the transfer was based on his affiliation with the "five percent Nation of Islam" religion. |
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http://www.aleph-institute.org/html/rfra-cas.html
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| | Statute of Anne - encyclopedia article about Statute of Anne. |
| | The Statute of Anne (short title Copyright Act 1709 8 Anne c.19) was the first British copyright law, enacted in 1709 and entering into force on April 10, 1710. | | | Various amendments have been made to the original statute, mostly originating from European Union directives. | | | April 10 - The world's first copyright legislation became effective, Britain's Statute of Anne |
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http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Statute+of+Anne
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| | Freedom of religion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| | Consequently the USA has become a nation of many religious institutions which flourish under the freedom of legal protection by local, state and federal governments. | | | Freedom of religion as a legal concept is related to but not identical with religious toleration, separation of church and state or laïcité. | | | Jehovah's witnesses: European Court of Human rights, Freedom of Religion, Speech, and Association in Europe |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion
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| | THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT |
| | They have all run into constitutional problems because they attempt to grant special religious freedoms to individuals and organizations that are not available to Agnostics, Atheists, and other secularists and their groups. | | | During the late 1980's, a series of rulings by the US Supreme Court upheld the right of governments to restrict religious freedom, as long as the limitations applied equally to all faiths. | | | These laws remain immensely popular among the general public and religious institutions and will probably continue to be introduced, passed, signed into law, and eventually declared unconstitutional. |
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http://www.religioustolerance.org/rfra.htm
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| | Status of religious freedom in Malaysia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| | The status of religious freedom in Malaysia is a controversial issue. | | | Her legal case is based on the freedom of religion clause in the constitution. | | | According to the ruling, the religious conversion of Muslims lies solely within the jurisdiction of Islamic courts. |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_religious_freedom_in_Malaysia
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| | Documents International Religious Liberty Association |
| | A bill he authored in 1777--the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedomproposed to do something no piece of written legislation had done before: To formally separate church and state. | | | One holds that religious belief --or non-belief--is not the business of government, that citizens may neither be compelled to worship nor barred from worshiping however and whenever they wish. | | | Monolithic religious systems may employ governmental power in an effort to compel allegiance and obedience to orthodoxy. |
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http://www.irla.org/documents/fel/fel1998/negus.html
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| | Religious-Tolerance Act Birthplace |
| | The statute, which called for the separation of church and state, was the basis for the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom as expressed in the First Amendment. | | | Today, the United States is one of perhaps half a dozen nations that enjoy the highest measure of freedom of religious expression. | | | Thomas Jefferson believed the Statute of Religious Freedom to be one of his finest achievements, together with the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the University of Virginia. |
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/597456/posts
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| | Stand Up for Equality |
| | In addition to civil unions, it expressly seeks to prohibit any "partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same-sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage." These words are astonishing both for their breadth and vagueness. | | | A civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage is prohibited. | | | House Bill 751, an amendment to the 1997 Affirmation of Marriage Act that already prohibits gay marriages, prohibits civil unions, domestic partnerships, and all contracts to duplicate any of the legal protections of civil marriage. |
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http://www.standupforequality.org
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| | Canada |
| | There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report, and government policy continued to contribute to the generally free practice of religion. | | | The proposed court, composed of religious scholars, would arbitrate civil cases in accordance with Shari'a. | | | In June 2004, the Supreme Court ruled on two cases brought by groups in Quebec who claimed that their right to freedom of religion had been restricted unduly by condominium contracts and municipal bylaws. |
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http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51630.htm
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| | BRIA(13:4) Separating Church and State, Religious tolerance, persecution, roman empire, government aid, parochial schools, school vouchers, education, U.S. Supreme Court |
| | Jefferson's "Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom" was passed on January 19, 1786. | | | Religious dissenters, like "Swearing Jack," were discriminated against, disqualified from holding public office, exiled, fined, jailed, beaten, mutilated, and sometimes even executed. | | | After reaching a majority decision on their question, justices of each court should explain to the rest of the class their ruling in terms of the three requirements of the Lemon test. |
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http://www.crf-usa.org/bria/bria13_4.html
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| | News - Religious Freedom in Canada Dependent on Supreme Court - Center for Reclaiming America |
| | Apparently, religious freedom in Canada is worthy of protection only if nine unelected Supreme Court justices desire it to be. | | | Bezan went on to call the action a clear disregard of charter law, which protects religious freedoms. | | | More and more, the religious freedoms of citizens are being given second-class status in favor of more “politically correct” priorities. |
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http://www.reclaimamerica.org/Pages/News/news.aspx?story=2271
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| | Jefferson on Politics & Government: Freedom of Religion |
| | "The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy]." --Thomas Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, 1802. | | | That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. | | | Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises and the objects proper for them according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands where the Constitution has deposited it... |
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http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1650.htm
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| | International Association for Religious Freedom |
| | In a May 2003 report from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom asserts that attacks on Jewish property in Belarus continue to be prevalent in the country with memorials, cemeteries and other property regularly subject to violence and vandalism. | | | While the Constitution provides for freedom of religion and indicates that there is no state religion, Catholicism is still the dominant religion in Spain and has a much closer relationship with the government than other faiths. | | | Canada's Islamic Institute of Civil Justice was formed in October 2003 and begins reviewing disputes in Ontario with operations to potentially extend across Canada at a later time. |
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http://www.iarf.net/GlobalIssues/Updates/Winter2004.htm
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| | FrederickClarkson.com |
| | One of the landmarks of religious freedom in the history of the world is under assault by Republican state legislators in Virginia. | | | The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, authored by Thomas Jefferson and eventually pushed through the Virginia legislature by James Madison in 1786, extended religious equality to all citizens. | | | This latest outrage is part of a widening assault on foundational ideas of religous equality and religious freedom, coming primarily from Republicans who are part of, or pandering to the Christian Right. |
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http://www.frederickclarkson.com/2005/02/virginia-gop-legislators-mount-major.html
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