I'm Used To Christians Not Being Allow To Proselytize in Muslim Countries

I'm Used To Christians Not Being Allow To Proselytize in Muslim Countries

I'm just not used to it being in the United States. From the June 18, 2009 San Jose Mercury-News:

DETROIT — A federal judge today denied an evangelical Christian group's request for permission to hand out literature on sidewalks at an Arab festival in the heart of the Detroit area's Middle Eastern community.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds denied Anaheim, Calif.-based Arabic Christian Perspective's request for a temporary restraining order.

The group describes itself in its court filing as "a national ministry established for the purpose of proclaiming the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ to Muslims ... (that) travels around the country attending and distributing Christian literature at Muslim festivals and mosques."

A lawyer for the group said it would seek a permanent injunction against the city of Dearborn.

"It's not over," said Robert J. Muise of the Thomas More Law Center, an Ann Arbor-based Christian rights advocacy group.

Another lawyer on the case said the Dearborn officials action could be part of what he described as a broader Muslim legal attack on critics of Islam in our "Judeo-Christian nation."

"Muslims are using the courts in this country to stop our free speech rights," said William J. Becker Jr., a Los Angeles attorney who has represented a number of prominent critics of Islam.

The 14th annual Dearborn Arab International Festival is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors Friday through Sunday to the city that has the Detroit area's greatest concentration of Arab-Americans.

Wow. How many parts of the First Amendment can this judge violate at once?

1. Public streets can't be used for a protected form of free speech.

2. And this is a violation of the freedom of religious exercise clause, since proselytizing is a fundamental part of the Christian faith.

3. And arguably a violation of religious establishment clause, since it would appear that there is a distinct penalty assessed against a particular religion.

And what makes this especially silly is that even by progressive notions of not offending, this doesn't make sense. A lot of Arab-Americans are Christians; that's one of the reasons that a lot of them came here. I have attended church with Arab-Americans in the past, and I know that they aren't particularly unique.

UPDATE: Professor Volokh in email points out that the restrictions in question are content-neutral; at this point, there is no evidence that Christians are being especially disfavored. I confess that I am a bit sensitive on this subject, simply because Islam is favored by the left (because they have imagined that Bush was making war on Islam), and Christianity an especially disfavored religion for the left (because we won't get with the program on homosexuality, abortion, and Gaea worship).

And while it is true that prohibiting leafleting does not preclude other available means of expressing an opinion--it is also true that the ACLU doesn't seem to ever recognize the validity of this approach when it comes to something like virtual child pornography, where they argued that because the law was overbroad, and therefore might apply to some serious artistic works, that therefore the law was unconstitutional. (There were no alternatives in making a film that wouldn't run afoul of the law?) I mean, you don't have to burn a flag to express your opinion, do you? According to the ACLU, alternate means of expressing an opinion just aren't adequate. (Except, of course, when wearing a T-shirt might offend homosexuals--then you have to shut up--at least, according to Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who is married to the ACLU of Southern California's director.)

I also find the notion that leafleting can be forbidden because of crowd control issues--but going out into the crowd to talk to people isn't--is absurd. Go into a crowd and start talking to people about something as emotional as religion, and I suspect that it is going to produce some pretty heated discussions--which will slow the flow of traffic. Leaflets, on the other hand, get stuffed into a pocket, producing no real change in traffic flow.

This street festival is supposedly different from a public street because there's some sort of public event being carried on. Somehow, I'm hard pressed to see how this makes it equivalent to a courthouse, a legislative body, a jail, or one of the other places where government is ordinarily granted additional power to restrict speech because they are performing a landlord function. Considering that the Supreme Court ruled in the Pruneyard decision that a private property owner may not exclude persons gathering signatures in a shopping center, because this is a form of public forum, it is hard to see how the government has authority to prohibit leafleting on public streets.

Ten Commandments

Ten Commandments

Those of you in the Boise area, or regular readers of this blog, know that several years ago, the city of Boise removed a Ten Commandments monument from Julia Davis Park. They did so because the Rev. Fred Phelps, a long-time liberal political activist before he was disbarred, and became Mr. Homophobe, demanded the right to put up a monument filled with anti-homosexual materials in the same park, unless Boise removed the Ten Commandments.

Boise chose to remove the Ten Commandments monument--even though there was case law that established that Phelps didn't have a leg to stand on, and there were lawyers prepared to defend Boise pro bono. But Mayor Bieter, who is a Democrat, used this as an excuse to remove the Ten Commandments monument, since this has become something of a symbol to local Democrats of our benighted state here--allowing something identified with the religion of 80% of the population of Idaho to survive.

The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently upheld the Texas legislature having a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the statehouse in Van Orden v. Perry (2005)--a situation even more fraught with potential Constitutional problems than its presence in a city park. And a couple of days back, a case exactly on point was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (2009). The Court held that there was no obligation for the city to add any monument that a crackpot group wanted in the park, just because the Ten Commandments monument was there.

What is astonishing about this case is that while there was some difference of opinion about why, there was complete and total agreement from all nine justices--even the raging liberals--about the result. Justice Alito's opinion explained that when the government speaks (as opposed to providing a public forum), it is expressing its opinion, and is under no Constitutional obligation to present all points of view.

We conclude, however, that although a park is a traditional public forum for speeches and other transitory expressive acts, the display of a permanent monument in a public park is not a form of expression to which forum analysis applies. Instead, the placement of a permanent monument in a public park is best viewed as a form of government speech and is therefore not subject to scrutiny under the Free Speech Clause.

...

The Free Speech Clause restricts government regulation of private speech; it does not regulate government speech.

I was quite amused by one example of the absurdity of where this "all points of view must have an equal opportunity for expression if the government puts even one point of view up" might lead:

Respondent contends that this issue “can be dealt with through content-neutral time, place and manner restrictions, including the option of a ban on all unattended displays.” Brief for Respondent 14. On this view, when France presented the Statue of Liberty to the United States in 1884, this country had the option of either (a) declining France’s offer or (b) accepting the gift, but providing a comparable location in the harbor of New York for other statues of a similar size and nature (e.g., a Statue of Autocracy, if one had been offered by, say, the German Empire or Imperial Russia).

I have a feeling the Statute of Autocracy today would look a lot like George Soros.

As Alito's decision points out, there are limits beyond which the government may not go, for example, with respect to creating an Establishment of Religion (which the Ten Commandments monument clearly does not)--but that the major limitation is that the voters can throw the rascals out:

The involvement of public officials in advocacy may be limited by law, regulation, or practice. And of course, a government entity is ultimately “accountable to the electorate and the political process for its advocacy.” Southworth, 529 U. S., at 235. “If the citizenry objects, newly elected officials later could espouse some different or contrary position.” Ibid.

What this means is that Mayor Bieter's claim that the city removed the Ten Commandments monument for Constitutional reasons is nonsense. They did it because Rev. Phelps gave them an excuse to do what they already wanted to do: remind the people of Boise that this is not a Christian city. Pretty clearly, the unwillingness of the voters of Boise to throw the rascals out over this--and even their unwillingness to overturn the decision by referendum--shows that Bieter was probably right. Democrats are a dominant force in Boise, and therefore, Christianity is destestable.

I'm disappointed that Bieter and the majority of the council decided to remove the Ten Commandments monument. There was no good reason for the city to spend the money that it did on removal, or on the subsequent lawsuits. This was simply an attempt to assuage the sizeable fraction of Boiseans who find it destestable and offensive to think that Christianity has any significance to this place. But they clearly have the authority to do so, as the Pleasant Grove City decision clearly finds. But if you live in a city where Christianity is not yet destestable, you can use this decision to take away the excuses of people like Mayor Bieter.

There's Apparently Quite A Bit Hidden In That Porkulus Bill

There's Apparently Quite A Bit Hidden In That Porkulus Bill

Liberty Counsel reports that there is a section of the bill that prohibits use of the funds for "modernization, renovation or repair of facilities ... used for sectarian instruction (or) religious worship." If the goal is to make sure that churches or mosques aren't being rebuilt, that's certainly lawful. But if the goal is to provide an excuse for preventing schools from doing improvements to auditoriums that are rented out to churches on Sundays--well, that's a big problem. Maybe even an unconstitutional one. And at least that's how Liberty Counsel describes it:

Both the House and Senate versions contain anti-faith language that will censor religion and force people of faith from the public square. The bill states that stimulus funds may not be used for "modernization, renovation, or repair of [certain educational] facilities – (i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission."

Several members of Congress, including Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), have attacked the 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill for its anti-faith censorship. DeMint stated that the bill would "empower the ACLU with ambiguous laws that create liability for schools, universities, and student organizations."

What A Surprise: Canadian Human Rights Tribunal Treats Some Religions Differently Than Others

What A Surprise: Canadian Human Rights Tribunal Treats Some Religions Differently Than Others

DaTechguy's Blog reports that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal--which has gone after Christian pastors for writing letters condemning homosexuality--declined to do likewise with Muslims condemning homosexuality, Christianity, and Judaism. He quotes from this column in the December 19, 2008 National Post:

In April, a Quebec blogger named Marc Lebuis brought a complaint to the commission over a book published on the Internet by a Montreal-based fundamentalist Muslim, Abou Hammad Sulaiman al-Hayiti. Lebuis claimed that the book exposed gays, Jews, non-Muslims generally and other identifiable groups to “hatred or contempt” under the plain meaning of Section 13 of the act.
Mr. Lebuis’ purpose, he admits, was to “test the objectivity of the commission” in light of commission rulings against Christians for publishing equally or less strident language.
The commission failed the test spectacularly. On Dec. 5, CHRC officials told Lebuis that they would not proceed with an investigation of his complaint. They argued that Mr. al-Hayiti was free to say whatever he liked against “infidels,” and particularly non-Muslim women (what with their disturbingly wanton habits of dress and behaviour!) because they do not constitute an “identifiable group.” As for Mr. al-Hayiti’s imprecations against groups established as “identifiable,” like gays and Jews, the commission reported vaguely that these “do not seem” to meet the criteria for promoting hatred.
The first part of the finding has the tendency of permitting any kind of abusive language to be used against members of a notional majority group by a member of a minority. As for the second, Mr. al-Hayiti’s own words raise the question of what a radical Muslim writer could possibly ever do to be found guilty of arousing “hatred or contempt.”
Allah, Mr. al-Hayiti warns, has taught that “If the Jews, Christians, and [Zoroastrians] refuse to answer the call of Islam, and will not pay the jizyah [tax], then it is obligatory for Muslims to fight them if they are able.” Christianity, in particular, is denounced as a “religion of lies,” which is responsible for the West’s “perversity, corruption and adultery.”
At one point, Mr. al-Hayiti’s book refers to “the incredible number of gays and lesbians (may Allah curse and destroy them in this life and the next) who sow disorder upon the Earth and who desire to increase their numbers.” In one short passage, this combines a seeming accusation of demonic “recruitment” with an open wish for the complete elimination of homosexuals and a claim that they are a source of social chaos. It is like a mini-compendium of every form of dehumanization, in other words, to which gays and lesbians have ever been subjected. Can you imagine how a Christian who uttered a similar statement would be treated by a human rights commission?
Actually, we don’t need to wonder. A few years back, a Christian pastor named Stephen Boissoin printed some negative remarks about gays that were far tamer than those of Mr. al-Hayiti. The result: Alberta’s Human Rights Commission smacked him down, declaring that henceforth he “shall cease publishing in newspapers, by e-mail, on the radio, in public speeches or on the Internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals.”

This doesn't surprise me. For a very long time, it has been apparent to me that much of the "separation of church and state" reasoning of the ACLU is actually hostility to Christianity. Perhaps if most American were Muslim, the ACLU would show as much interest in going after Islam, too. Of course, that would be difficult for the ACLU to do, since they would (at best) be sitting in prison cells in the Islamic States of America.

Places That You Aren't Allowed To Evangelize

Places That You Aren't Allowed To Evangelize

No, not public schools in the U.S.--public streets in Britain. From the June 2, 2008 Daily Telegraph:

A police community support officer ordered two Christian preachers to stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham.

The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that "no-go areas" for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities, as the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, claimed in The Sunday Telegraph this year.

Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, both full-time evangelical ministers, have launched legal action against West Midlands Police, claiming the officer infringed their right to profess their religion.

Mr Abraham said: "I couldn't believe this was happening in Britain. The Bishop of Rochester was criticised by the Church of England recently when he said there were no-go areas in Britain but he was right; there are certainly no-go areas for Christians who want to share the gospel."

...

The preachers, both ministers in Birmingham, were handing out leaflets on Alum Rock Road in February when they started talking to four Asian youths.

A police community support officer (PCSO) interrupted the conversation and began questioning the ministers about their beliefs.

They said when the officer realised they were American, although both have lived in Britain for many years, he launched a tirade against President Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Cunningham said: "I told him that this had nothing to do with the gospel we were preaching but he became very aggressive.

"He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station."

Where Antidiscrimination Laws Take You

I mentioned a while back that a photographer who refused an assignment to photograph a same-sex civil commitment ceremony was being sued before the New Mexico Human Rights Commission for discriminating against homosexuals. The photographer has now been ordered to pay costs of $6637.94. Professor Volokh discusses the issues involved, and predictably, lawyers and law students are piling on, most of them defending why this is a good thing.

Homosexuality, freedom: pick one.

This is why State Senator Corder's bill prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation is so dangerous--it creates all sorts of opportunities like this.

A Very Nebulous Law

A Very Nebulous Law--And Maybe That's The Point

From the October 8, 2007 Daily Mail:

Stirring up hatred against homosexuals is to become a serious crime punishable with a seven-year jail sentence under a law announced last night.

The legislation - similar to laws already in force outlawing persecution on religious or racial grounds - will make criminals of those who express their views in ways that could lead to the bullying or harassment of gays.

The maximum sentence is longer than the average of around five years handed to rapists.

The announcement widened the rift between opposing supporters of freedom of speech and gay rights.

Christian groups condemned it as "a law to allow Christiansto be locked up for what they believe".

But the gay pressure group Stonewall said those who disapprove of homosexuals would have nothing to fear from the law if they express their views in a manner that is "temperate" and "polite".

Justice Secretary Jack Straw told MPs the gay harassment law will be included as an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill currently going before Parliament, though ministers have yet to decide the wording.

Mr Straw said: "It is a measure of how far we have come as a society in the last ten years that we are now appalled by hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality.

"It is time for the law to recognise this."

He raised the prospect of extending the law to cover to "transgendered" people and the disabled.

The new law aims to catch those who do not explicitly call for attacks or discrimination against homosexuals, as this is covered by existing incitement laws.

Instead, police will be allowed to pursue those who create an "atmosphere or climate" in which hatred or bullying can be fostered. Officials said it would not prohibit criticism of gay, lesbian and bisexual people or joke-telling.

The final decision over who has "crossed the line" will rest with the police.

I can't quite tell what would be unlawful--which may be the point--to create chilling effect on free speech. Will you be able to express opposition to homosexual-affilated groups like North American Man-Boy Love Association or sadomasochistic displays like the Folsom Street Fair? Would that "cross the line" or not? If you aren't sure, many people will decide just to shut up, and take no chances of going to prison.

If you want to know what sort of society Britain is becoming--and which America will become, if the ACLU has its way--well, there's this news story from the October 4, 2007 Daily Mail:

Firemen who shone their torches [flashlights] at four men they found having sex in bushes have been disciplined by their bosses.

The crew spotted the men engaged in illegal 'dogging' - outdoor sexual activity with strangers - on parkland known as the Downs in Bristol late one night.

After embarrassing the men by pointing their torches at them, the crew continued on their way to their fire station.

But one of the 'doggers' complained to Avon Fire and Rescue, ultimately accusing the four-man crew of being homophobic.

The firemen, who have 26 years of service between them, were then suspended on full pay for three months during an internal investigation.

Yesterday it emerged that two have been fined £1,000 each, another demoted to a rank which will see him forfeit a similar amount of money, while a fourth has received a stern written warning.

...

The crew have been transferred to other stations and ordered to attend an equality course.

But no action has been taken against any of the men believed to have been involved in the dogging.

The one who complained is said to be 'happy' at the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings in which the firemen were charged with bringing the service into disrepute and misuse of fire equipment.

The firemen, formerly members of Avon Fire Service's Blue Watch at Avonmouth station in Bristol, have been banned from discussing the incident, which took place at about 10.30pm on June 27.

But one of their colleagues said yesterday: 'This is a complete farce. All four officers have been let down by their senior officers when they needed their support the most.

'They have been treated as the criminals and it has been forgotten that they witnessed criminal activity occurring in a public place.'

What a great future we have ahead of us in America.

Why The Right of Conscience Is At Risk

Why The Right of Conscience Is At Risk

We've had a long history in the U.S. of struggling over the question of what constitutes the right of individuals to disagree. Thomas Jefferson's famous saying that:

The error seems not sufficiently eradicated that the operations of the mind as well as the acts of the body are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

applies to this case, where homosexuals are intent on forcing their will on those who do not agree. From the September 18, 2007 New York Times:

A boardwalk pavilion in the seaside town of Ocean Grove, N.J., that has been at the center of a battle over gay civil union ceremonies has lost its tax-exempt status because the state ruled it no longer met the requirements as a place open to all members of the public.

In a letter to the administrator of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, a Methodist organization that owns the pavilion property, the state commissioner of environmental protection, Lisa Jackson, declined to recertify the pavilion as eligible for a real estate tax exemption it has enjoyed since 1989 under the state’s Green Acres Program, but did renew the tax-exempt status of the rest of the boardwalk and the beach, also owned by the association.

The issue arose after the association, which has owned the land, the beach and 1,000 feet of the sea itself since 1870, rejected the requests of two lesbian couples to have their civil union ceremonies at the Boardwalk Pavilion.

The couples complained to the State Division on Civil Rights, which began a discrimination investigation. The association sued the state, claiming that the investigation violated its First Amendment rights because civil unions were contrary to the beliefs of the United Methodist Church.

Imagine if, during the 1960s, the U.S. government had revoked the tax exempt status of the Mennonite or Quaker Churches because they were morally opposed to war, and refused to allow military recruiters into their churches. Here is an example of a group (and United Methodists are a very, very liberal denomination) that has a moral objection to homosexuality that is being blackmailed into smiling and pretending that everything is okay.

It is for this reason, and because it violates federalism, that I oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that is currently before Congress. It seeks to add sexual orientation to the list of protected groups under federal law. At least the version that I have seen is unlikely to impair the right of conscience--but if there is any lesson to be learned from watching the very creative laws demanding the courts impose same-sex marriage around the country, it is that homosexual activists will take any opportunity to twist the laws far and above what they were intended to do. Why make it easier for them by passing ENDA?

If you live in Idaho, you need to email Rep. Mike Simpson and let him know that ENDA needs to come to an end, and to vote no on it.

Conformity

Imagine if Tennessee required private schools to teach Creationism, that homosexuality is a sin, and if you enrolled your kids in schools that didn't teach those things, the state would take your kids away. But this account is just the other direction, so I expect progressive sorts will back this up:

Fifteen Christian families from a tiny community of only about 1,300 people are making plans to leave their homes and work behind so that their children will not be forced by the Canadian government to attend "sanctioned" schools where evolution is taught.

A report in the Vancouver Sun said provincial officials have threatened the families with legal action, including the potential loss of their children to state control, if they do not abide by the mandatory education curriculum.

But leaders of the Mennonite families say they'll leave Quebec before giving up their children to the state indoctrination.

...

The Mennonites, whose forefathers broke away from the reforms of Martin Luther because they were not radical enough and adopted several distinctive practices including adult baptism, established their own school in the community a few years after they arrived. Last year eight children were enrolled in grades 1-7, and this year 11 students were expected.

Children are taught reading, writing, math, science, geography, social sciences and music, as well as English and French.

But they didn't use the government-mandated curriculum that includes the teachings of evolution, and other subjects to which parents objected. So authorities warned the parents they would face legal proceedings if their children were not enrolled in "sanctioned" schools this fall.

Goossen said the 30 parents and children in families who would be endangered will move immediately; the rest of the group will follow shortly later.

Officials said in addition to the issue of the curriculum, the teacher at the Mennonite school was not "certified."

"To do that, we would have to send teachers to schools we don't want to send our children to," Goossen said.

"We don't agree with the emphasis on evolution, which we consider false; we don't like the morality standards; and we don't like the acceptance of alternative lifestyles," he said.

There's a few things about Mennonite beliefs that I don't agree with--for example, their pacifism. (Unlike progressives, however, they aren't prepared to send out government agents with guns to force their pacifism on others.)

I also think that it puts kids at a terrible disadvantage if they don't learn about evolution. For all the evidence that evolution is a bit oversold by its priests, it is a good operating model for understanding biology, and you can't seriously criticize a theory that you don't fully understand.

There is also a pretty strong argument that a modern society can't operate if large fractions of the population aren't receiving some minimal level of education, and this is perhaps a good argument for requiring that parents get their kids educated. In a fair number of big cities, you can see the consequences of this, where the combination of destructive subcultures and public schools that don't work produce large populations of high school graduates who can barely read--and a fair number who can't read at all.

Still, when the government threatens to take your children because you won't put them in public schools, or requires them to attend private schools that teach a particular curriculum, this is totalitarianism--and far more dangerous than a tiny minority of dissenters who won't go along with the totalitarian program.

The KKK relied on this totalitarian technique when it persuaded Oregon to pass a ban on private schooling early in the 20th century. Fortunately, those evil strict constructionists on the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), relying on the precedent in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), which struck down a Nebraska law that prohibited teaching children in languages other than English. The decision recognized that parent have a right to decide whom to employ to teach their children--and in what language--and this statute violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Canada has some very strong totalitarian tendencies. Doubtless this is why progressive sorts worship it so strongly.

Prayer Time in Public School

There's a public school that provides 15 minutes during class time for students to pray. Where's the ACLU? Oh yes, it's for Muslims, so the rules are different:

Carver Elementary in Oak Park added Arabic to its curriculum in September when it suddenly absorbed more than 100 students from a defunct charter school that had served mostly Somali Muslims.

After subbing at Carver, the teacher claimed that religious indoctrination was taking place and said that a school aide had led Muslim students in prayer.

An investigation by the San Diego Unified School District failed to substantiate the allegations. But critics continue to assail Carver for providing a 15-minute break in the classroom each afternoon to accommodate Muslim students who wish to pray. (Those who don't pray can read or write during that non-instructional time.)

I don't mind accommodating the religious beliefs of students--but I object to giving different treatment to some religions, and I especially object to treating Islam as legally superior to Christianity. You can make a strong case based on Founding Era statutes that the First Amendment's establishment clause was consistent with giving preference to Christianity (although not any particular denomination) over other religions and over non-belief. (This doesn't mean that we are required to do so today, but that there is nothing contrary to the Constitution in giving such preference.) But to give special preference for Islam is crazy.

"We Won't Force Churches to Marry Same-Sex Couples"

At least, not this week. But they will force churches to provide the space to do it:

TRENTON, N.J. -- A lesbian couple barred from holding their civil union ceremony at a beachfront pavilion in Ocean Grove has filed a state civil rights complaint against the church group that owns the property.

The couple, Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster, of Ocean Grove, alleged in a complaint filed Tuesday with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights that they were denied use of the boardwalk pavilion because of their pending status as same-sex civil union partners.

"They have weddings there all the time," said Bernstein, a semi-retired educational consultant. "We wanted to have our ceremony on the boardwalk, on the beach, because it's a beautiful setting, just like any married couple would want to do."

Division on Civil Rights Director Frank Vespa-Papaleo said the complaint was the first to deal with discrimination in public places under New Jersey's new civil union law, which took effect in February.

The boardwalk pavilion the couple applied to use is owned by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, a Methodist ministry that owns all the land and the boardwalk in the oceanfront enclave of Victorian homes that is now part of Neptune Township.

The couple applied in March to rent the pavilion for a Sept. 30 ceremony. Their application was rejected and their $75 deposit returned.

Here's an interesting question: which takes priority? The First Amendment's free exercise of religion clause? Or a state law prohibiting discrimination? A business that refuses to print wedding announcements for a same-sex couple clearly loses; there's no Constitutional right to refuse business. But forcing a church to provide space for a wedding that they find abhorrent clearly forces a church to violate its conscience. This is no different than if an Jewish synagogue or temple was in the habit of renting out its day camp in the Malibu hills, and refused to rent it to a neo-Nazi group.

Any rational analysis would conclude that the First Amendment's protection takes precedence over a state antidiscrimination statute. But I suspect that in this case, the First Amendment will be the loser. The courts will probably conclude that there's no "rational basis" for a church to object to same-sex marriage, because it is just bigotry motivated by animus (to use a phrase the Court has used when striking down an amendment to the Colorado Constitution).

Civil Unions in Oregon; Incest Prohibition Repeal Coming Next

Dale Carpenter at Volokh Conspiracy reports on Oregon legislature's passage of a civil unions bill for same-sex couples.

Just to add to the excitement, Professor Volokh discusses the emerging movement to decriminalize incest, with the Green Party in Germany backing a brother and sister who have had four children together, and Jeff Jacoby gives details on a number of suits in the U.S. attempting to decriminalize incest.

One commenter over at Volokh Conspiracy is clearly beginning to be bothered by the sight of the far end of the slippery slope which derives from the notion that anything that consenting adults do is okay:

If majority-status "consent" is the only criteria for distinguishing an activity as legal, then what's stopping us from consen[s]ual gladi[a]torial contests involving lethal duels?

Why do I get the impression that Western Civilization is sliding back to barbarity, on the heels of its most educated members?

The claim that what consenting adults do is none of the government's business would apply equally to racial discrimination in employment, or building a machine gun in your home, or having sex with animals, or torturing animals to death for a paying crowd. I think this would make a marvelous new reality show: "Let's see how long this dog stays alive, screaming in pain, while we slowly rip its skin off its body!" A lot of things involve consenting adults that civilized societies don't considerable acceptable--but in the pursuit of making one small group feel good about themselves by mandating legalization of same-sex marriage, the intellectuals are slowly destroying the basis for rules that define civilization.

Just to add to the insanity, Professor Volokh mentions that one American state has a provision in its incest law that gives a special legal status to one particular religion, by exempting uncle/niece marriages from the state's law banning incestuous marriages:

§ 15-1-4 Marriages of kindred allowed by Jewish religion. – The provisions of §§ 15-1-1 – 15-1-3 shall not extend to, or in any way affect, any marriage which shall be solemnized among the Jewish people, within the degrees of affinity or consanguinity allowed by their religion.

This means that members of one religion enjoy certain legal benefits that members of another religion do not. Imagine if an American state had a law on the books that said that the laws against child molestation didn't apply to Catholics. How many nanoseconds would it take for the ACLU to file suit for violating the First Amendment's guarantee against establishment of religion?

There might an argument that not writing such an exemption for Jews into the law would violate the freedom of religion clause--but even then, such a provision would have to apply to every religion or to non-religious persons to avoid establishment of religion problems.