Texas’s ban on same-sex marriage ruled unconstitutional

Today comes word that US District Judge Orlando Garcia has ruled that Texas’s ban on same sex marriage, as specified in Article 1, section 32 of the Texas state constitution, is unconstitutional, saying that “the prohibition on same sex marriage conflicts with the United States Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process.” The order was stayed pending appeal. Texas thus joins Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Utah in this action, and other states have similar cases pending.
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The extremely delicate sensibilities of some religious organizations

The Affordable Care Act requires employers that provide health insurance to employees to provide contraceptive coverage for women. Religious organizations that oppose contraception have argued that this violates their religious beliefs and have gone to court to say that they should be exempt under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that prevents the government from taking actions that would “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless there is a “compelling governmental interest” and the action is the “least restrictive” it can take.
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Same-sex marriage bans challenged in Ohio and Colorado

Given that courts everywhere are overturning bans on same-sex marriage I was wondering why it had not been challenged in Oho, which passed by referendum a constitutional amendment banning it in 2004 in the heyday of anti-gay fervor. But yesterday comes news that a family living in a nearby community to mine that is headed by a same-sex couple with an adopted child had challenged it because Ohio’s definition of marriage excludes them from obtaining cheaper health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
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Ethiopian government spying on American citizen

Thanks to the documents released by Edward Snowden, we know that the US government thinks that it has the right to spy on citizens all over the world. While it claims to abide by legal restrictions that prevent it spying on Americans (a claim that has been seen to be increasingly hollow), it openly asserts that it can spy on the people of other countries without restriction. The only regret it has expressed is for getting caught spying on the leaders of friendly countries.
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Government viewpoint neutrality

The Establishment Clause requires the government to be neutral in matters of religion. But is the government required to be neutral on other issues? Clearly not, since the government can and should be able to advocate on behalf on one side of some issues, say the evils of drug use. This principle was established in the 1977 case Wooley v. Maynard (in which a New Hampshire resident objected to being forced to display the state motto “Live Free or Die” on his license plate) in which the court ruled that the state may advance an ideological message but this freedom of government speech is not without restrictions because the government cannot force others to be couriers or disseminators of its message. [Read more…]

The cross on the LA county seal

There is an interesting case coming out of southern California that brings to the forefront a few of the constitutional issues involving church and state. The courts have tried to draw distinctions between passive symbols of religion (such as mottoes, crosses and Bibles on seals, and religious sayings on monuments and currencies) and active actions (such as prayer and religious instruction and religion-based actions and policies). It has also tried to distinguish between elimination of long-standing religious practices and those that are introduced as new now, even if the specific act involved is the same. [Read more…]

Prayer at government functions-10: The oral arguments in Greece v. Galloway

In the previous post in this series, I set up the problem facing the Supreme Court as it discusses the Greece case. Can the Court come up with guidelines for prayers that meet the earlier high standard of requiring strict neutrality between religions and between religion and non-religion or even the later lower standard set by the 1983 Marsh case that the prayers do not ‘proselytize, advance, or disparage’ any religion? If such guidelines can be drawn, then how can government agencies at any level see to it that they are followed without running afoul of the other constitutional requirement that the government not censor or otherwise parse the content of prayers or, even worse, dictate the content of the prayers? [Read more…]