Religious Freedom and the Neutrality of the State
Religious Freedom and the Neutrality of the State

Author: W. A. R. Shadid

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9789042910898

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The permanent presence of Islam and Muslims is a comparatively recent phenomenon in most countries of the European Union. Over the last few decades many initiatives have been launched by Muslim communities in the European Union to create infrastructural provisions for their religious life, within the existing legal and social frameworks. In fact, all countries of the European Union share the principles of religious freedom and non-discrimination in their respective Constitutions. However, the precise way in which these principles are interpreted and applied to Islam depends largely on the historical traditions concerning the relation between State and Religion, which differ from one country to another. These differences are reflected in recent developments in the communication between the States and their Muslim communities, both at national, regional and municipal levels. They are also reflected in recent developments in legislation and jurisprudence concerning the most essential Islamic core-values, such as dietary laws, the precepts on modest dress, Islamic burial practices and the possibilities to found Islamic cemeteries, as well as the observance of Friday prayers and annual holidays. Looking at the legal position of Islam in the countries of the European Union, the authors of this volume discuss the challenges posed by the presence of Islam to the Western European system of relationships between law and religion. They argue, that these challenges necessitate reforms within the relevant European legislation, but differ as to their precise nature. They also discuss the difficulties of this task, as these adjustments will alter a longstanding balance of rights and privileges recognised by different religious denominations. Legal reforms, however, are not sufficient. The creation of a truly multicultural Europe also necessitates fighting against the negative image of Islam and Muslims (anti-Muslimism or Islamophobia) prevailing in most of its member states.

State Neutrality
State Neutrality

Author: Kerry O'Halloran

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-01-21

Total Pages: 529

ISBN-13: 1108481590

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O'Halloran provides a comparative evaluation of contemporary law as it relates to religion in six developed nations.

Church, State, and Freedom
Church, State, and Freedom

Author: Leo Pfeffer

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2018-05-02

Total Pages: 849

ISBN-13: 1532644523

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“I believe that complete separation of church and state is one of those miraculous things which can be best for religion and best for the state, and the best for those who are religious and those who are not religious.” – Leo Pfeffer Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. These sixteen words epitomize a radical experiment unique in human history . . . It is the purpose of this book to examine how this experiment came to be made, what are the implications and consequences of its application to democratic living in America today, and what are the forces seeking to frustrate and defeat that experiment. (From the Foreword)

When Free Exercise and Nonestablishment Conflict
When Free Exercise and Nonestablishment Conflict

Author: Kent Greenawalt

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2017-06-19

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0674972201

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The First Amendment to the United States Constitution begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Taken as a whole, this statement has the aim of separating church and state, but tensions can emerge between its two elements—the so-called Nonestablishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause—and the values that lie beneath them. If the government controls (or is controlled by) a single church and suppresses other religions, the dominant church’s “establishment” interferes with free exercise. In this respect, the First Amendment’s clauses coalesce to protect freedom of religion. But Kent Greenawalt sets out a variety of situations in which the clauses seem to point in opposite directions. Are ceremonial prayers in government offices a matter of free exercise or a form of establishment? Should the state provide assistance to religious private schools? Should parole boards take prisoners’ religious convictions into account? Should officials act on public reason alone, leaving religious beliefs out of political decisions? In circumstances like these, what counts as appropriate treatment of religion, and what is misguided? When Free Exercise and Nonestablishment Conflict offers an accessible but sophisticated exploration of these conflicts. It explains how disputes have been adjudicated to date and suggests how they might be better resolved in the future. Not only does Greenawalt consider what courts should decide but also how officials and citizens should take the First Amendment’s conflicting values into account.

Defending American Religious Neutrality
Defending American Religious Neutrality

Author: Andrew Koppelman

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 0674071077

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Although it is often charged with hostility toward religion, First Amendment doctrine in fact treats religion as a distinctive human good. It insists, however, that this good be understood abstractly, without the state taking sides on any theological question. Here, a leading scholar of constitutional law explains the logic of this uniquely American form of neutrality—more religion-centered than liberal theorists propose, and less overtly theistic than conservatives advocate. The First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion is under threat. Growing numbers of critics, including a near-majority of the Supreme Court, seem ready to cast aside the ideal of American religious neutrality. Andrew Koppelman defends that ideal and explains why protecting religion from political manipulation is imperative in an America of growing religious diversity. Understanding American religious neutrality, Koppelman shows, can explain some familiar puzzles. How can Bible reading in public schools be impermissible while legislative sessions begin with prayers, Christmas is an official holiday, and the words “under God” appear in the Pledge of Allegiance? Are faith-based social services, public financing of religious schools, or the teaching of intelligent design constitutional? Combining legal, historical, and philosophical analysis, Koppelman shows how law coherently navigates these conundrums. He explains why laws must have a secular legislative purpose, why old, but not new, ceremonial acknowledgments of religion are permitted, and why it is fair to give religion special treatment.

The Tragedy of Religious Freedom
The Tragedy of Religious Freedom

Author: Marc O. DeGirolami

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-06-10

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 0674074157

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When it comes to questions of religion, legal scholars face a predicament. They often expect to resolve dilemmas according to general principles of equality, neutrality, or the separation of church and state. But such abstractions fail to do justice to the untidy welter of values at stake. Offering new views of how to understand and protect religious freedom in a democracy, The Tragedy of Religious Freedom challenges the idea that matters of law and religion should be referred to far-flung theories about the First Amendment. Examining a broad array of contemporary and more established Supreme Court rulings, Marc DeGirolami explains why conflicts implicating religious liberty are so emotionally fraught and deeply contested. Twenty-first-century realities of pluralism have outrun how scholars think about religious freedom, DeGirolami asserts. Scholars have not been candid enough about the tragic nature of the conflicts over religious liberty—the clash of opposing interests and aspirations they entail, and the limits of human reason to resolve intractable differences. The Tragedy of Religious Freedom seeks to turn our attention from abstracted, absolute values to concrete, historical realities. Social history, characterized by the struggles of lawyers engaged in the details of irreducible conflicts, represents the most promising avenue to negotiate legal conflicts over religion. In this volume, DeGirolami offers an approach to understanding religious liberty that is neither rigidly systematic nor ad hoc, but a middle path grounded in a pluralistic and historically informed perspective.

Secularism and Freedom of Conscience
Secularism and Freedom of Conscience

Author: Jocelyn Maclure

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-10-24

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 0674062957

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Secularism: the definition of this word is as practical and urgent as income inequalities or the paths to sustainable development. In this wide-ranging analysis, Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor provide a clearly reasoned, articulate account of the two main principles of secularism—equal respect, and freedom of conscience—and its two operative modes—separation of Church (or mosque or temple) and State, and State neutrality vis-à-vis religions. But more crucially, they make the powerful argument that in our ever more religiously diverse, politically interconnected world, secularism, properly understood, may offer the only path to religious and philosophical freedom. Secularism and Freedom of Conscience grew out of a very real problem—Quebec’s need for guidelines to balance the equal respect due to all citizens with the right to religious freedom. But the authors go further, rethinking secularism in light of other critical issues of our time. The relationship between religious beliefs and deeply-held secular convictions, the scope of the free exercise of religion, and the place of religion in the public sphere are aspects of the larger challenge Maclure and Taylor address: how to manage moral and religious diversity in a free society. Secularism, they show, is essential to any liberal democracy in which citizens adhere to a plurality of conceptions of what gives meaning and direction to human life. The working model the authors construct in this nuanced account is capacious enough to accommodate difference and freedom of conscience, while holding out hope for a world in which diversity no longer divides us.

Religious Ideas in Liberal Democratic States
Religious Ideas in Liberal Democratic States

Author: Jasper Doomen

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-07-29

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1793618399

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Religious Ideas in Liberal Democratic States adds new context to the ongoing debate over the scope of religious freedom, drawing from a variety of perspectives to discuss the meaning of religion itself within a democratic state. This book argues that categorizing religion as a solely private affair is too narrow an interpretation and questions whether ideas like freedom, human dignity, and equality can be truly actualized in a neutral and secular state. Contributors explore the impact of religion, acknowledged or not, on legislation, human rights, and group rights through legal, historical, and sociological lenses. Scholars of constitutional law, jurisprudence, international law, and political science will find this book particularly useful.

Toward Benevolent Neutrality
Toward Benevolent Neutrality

Author: Robert Thomas Miller

Publisher: Baylor University Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 550

ISBN-13:

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Also included are essays interpreting the historical background and legal issues involved in each case, beginning with the principal events leading to the adoption of the First Amendment.

Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy
Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy

Author: Jean L. Cohen

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0231540736

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Polarization between political religionists and militant secularists on both sides of the Atlantic is on the rise. Critically engaging with traditional secularism and religious accommodationism, this collection introduces a constitutional secularism that robustly meets contemporary challenges. It identifies which connections between religion and the state are compatible with the liberal, republican, and democratic principles of constitutional democracy and assesses the success of their implementation in the birthplace of political secularism: the United States and Western Europe. Approaching this issue from philosophical, legal, historical, political, and sociological perspectives, the contributors wage a thorough defense of their project's theoretical and institutional legitimacy. Their work brings fresh insight to debates over the balance of human rights and religious freedom, the proper definition of a nonestablishment norm, and the relationship between sovereignty and legal pluralism. They discuss the genealogy of and tensions involving international legal rights to religious freedom, religious symbols in public spaces, religious arguments in public debates, the jurisdiction of religious authorities in personal law, and the dilemmas of religious accommodation in national constitutions and public policy when it violates international human rights agreements or liberal-democratic principles. If we profoundly rethink the concepts of religion and secularism, these thinkers argue, a principled adjudication of competing claims becomes possible.