Category: freedom from religion

Is a National Park violating the First Amendment?

July 4, 2019 • 9:00 am

Today, after snorkeling at the nearby Honaunu Bay, I visited the Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, a small but historic abode of Hawaiian royalty and a “place of refuge”.  As the Wikipedia entry notes,

The historical park preserves the site where, up until the early 19th century, Hawaiians who broke a kapu (one of the ancient laws) could avoid certain death by fleeing to this place of refuge or puʻuhonua. The offender would be absolved by a priest and freed to leave. Defeated warriors and non-combatants could also find refuge here during times of battle. The grounds just outside the Great Wall that encloses the puʻuhonua were home to several generations of powerful chiefs.

It was quite intriguing, and among the smallest of America’s national parks. As I was driving away, however, I noticed this in the parking lot within the Park boundaries:

Yes, you got it: two Jehovah’s Witnesses in full proselytizing mode, complete with help-yourself leaflets.

I couldn’t help myself: I went up to the two men in the photo and asked them if they had permission to set up shop within a National Park. They said “yes”, and when I asked them who gave them permission, they replied, “the park rangers” and pointed to the ranger station just across the road.

I could not do otherwise: I went into the ranger station to try to verify what the Witnesses had told me. I encountered two young rangers and asked them if the proselytizers did indeed have permission to set up religious shop within park boundaries. They were a bit confused, but said that there was some “First Amendment” rule that parks could indeed set aside space for this.

That confused me even more, for although it’s possible that one could demonstrate within Park boundaries and express free speech, the First Amendment also prohibits government entanglement with religion. And if anything represents government entanglement with religion, the JW literature stand does. But the two young rangers said they’d get someone higher up to answer my question.

An older woman ranger, whose name I can’t recall, came out to answer my question. When I told her what I wanted, she said that I should step outside the station and she would answer me. I found that very odd: why couldn’t she answer my question inside the ranger station, and in the presence of her subordinates? Not only that, but she then locked the station from the outside with a key.

She then explained to me what the younger rangers had told me: that there was a provision, determined by each park separately, to set aside part of National Park space for people to exercise their First Amendment rights. When I explained to her that the First Amendment prohibited entanglement of religion and government, and that the JW stand sure looked like such entanglement, she just repeated herself. (This ranger, for purposes of identification, was on duty at about 11:30 a.m on July 3.)

I asked if any religion other than Jehovah’s Witnesses had ever had a station for proselytizing in this park. She said that, as far as she could remember, no.

She told me that she would email me the information about why proselytizing was allowed on Park property, and so I gave her my name and email address. I also told her I was on the Honorary Board of Directors of the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), and didn’t think what was happening was constitutional.

Of course it may be legal, and I await the material the ranger promised send me. But even if it is legal, it’s still palpably unconstitutional. No religion should have the right to set up shop in a National Park and distribute its literature to the visitors. That is clearly excessive involvement of government (which runs the National Parks system) with religion.

Stay tuned. I have of course reported this to the FFRF and await the ranger’s email. But I sure didn’t think I’d get involved in a First Amendment kerfuffle on my vacation!

Conversation with attorney Andrew Seidel on June 11 about the secular origins of the United States

May 10, 2019 • 11:30 am

If you’re in Chicago, mark your calendars for June 11. For on that evening I’ll be having a conversation in town with Andrew Seidel (sponsored by the Freedom from Religion Foundation [FFRF] and the End of the Line Humanists) about Andrew’s new book, The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American. To be released in four days, the book deals with the secular origins of America—neither the founders nor the founding “principles” were religious—and shows how those who promulgate that myth (mostly the Christian Nationalists) are dead wrong and ignorant of history. It’s a must-have book for secularists.

Andrew, with whom I’ve worked on a few cases as an evolution expert or “censorious person,” is a constitutional lawyer and the Director of Strategic Response at the FFRF. And the book is good: I’m nearly done with my first read.

The official announcement is below. The discussion is free, it’s at 7:30, and it’s held at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with the address given in the flyer (click on screenshot to enlarge). Andrew’s book will be available at the venue and he’ll be signing it. If you’re in Chicago, we’ll be delighted to see you there. There will be lots to discuss and lots of myths to dispel.

FFRF loses a slam-dunk case in Federal appellate court

March 16, 2019 • 2:00 pm

If ever a First Amendment case looked like a winner, it was this one: the U.S. government keeps giving a tax exemption to ministers so that their housing allowances provided by the church—allowances that could be substantial, and include house renovations—remain tax free. No other people save “ministers of the gospel” (I assume that includes non-gospel-adhering rabbis) get this benefit.

This is blatantly unconstitutional, for it violates the First Amendment by privileging ministers of religion over anybody else.

As I wrote two years ago, here’s the relevant section from the U.S. Tax Code:

A licensed, commissioned, or ordained minister may be able to exclude from income the fair rental value of a home (a parsonage) or a housing allowance provided as compensation for ministerial services performed as an employee. A minister who is furnished a parsonage may exclude from income the fair rental value of the parsonage, including utilities. However, the amount excluded can’t be more than reasonable compensation for the minister’s services.

A minister who receives a housing allowance may exclude the allowance from gross income to the extent it’s used to pay expenses in providing a home. Generally, those expenses include rent, mortgage interest, utilities, repairs, and other expenses directly relating to providing a home. The amount excluded can’t be more than the reasonable compensation for the minister’s services.

Note that this includes utilities, repairs, as well as other stuff not listed above but included by the law and the courts: cable television fees, towels, bedding home decor, and computers.

The loss to the government from this unconstitutional stipulation is about $700 million per year.  As the FFRF notes in the report below, “84 percent of senior pastors receive a housing allowance of $20,000 to $38,000 in added (but not reported) compensation to their base salary.”

The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) went after this, and the 6-year battle has been tortuous:

  • In 2013, the FFRF sued the government in Federal District Court, and won
  • That verdict was overruled on appeal, as the appellate court ruled that Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker (co-Presidents of the FFRF), who had sued, didn’t have standing, and couldn’t prove they’d been injured by the law (“standing” is often a way for courts to get rid of distasteful cases without having to rule on the law)
  • Annie Laurie and Dan then made themselves “injured” by claiming a refund of housing allowances on their own taxes, which of course was denied. That was the requisite injury. They went back to court
  • On October 2016, the Western District Court of Wisconsin ruled that the law violated the First Amendment. A big win for the FFRF!
  • But of course, as I reported here, the government appealed, and so the case went to the Seventh Circuit Court, headquartered in Chicago.  The Seventh Circuit is notably conservative (read FFRF lawyer Andrew Seidel’s assessment of the case at this stage).

And a ruling has just come down from the court, as reported in this FFRF bulletin (click on the screenshot). Sadly, the 3-0 ruling was in favor of the government, affirming that clergy indeed have a right to tax-free housing expenses, computer fees, costs of bedding, cable television, and so on. Read and weep (click on the screenshot):

You can see the court’s unanimous decision here.  They weaseled out of the First Amendment by relying on the “historical significance test”, which simply claims that favoring religion (like putting “In God We Trust” on money) loses its significance as a religious trope over time as it slowly elides into “history”. Here’s part of the ruling, and you can see how weaselly it is:

As the FFRF reports further:

While Crabb (in the original pro-FFRF judgement) ruled that “the plain language of the statute, its legislative history and its operation in practice all demonstrate a preference for ministers over secular employees,” the appeals court panel disagreed, applying what they called “the historic significance test.”

Wrote Brennan: “FFRF claims §107(2) renders unto God that which is Caesar’s. But this tax provision falls into the play between the joints of the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause: neither commanded by the former, nor proscribed by latter. We conclude §107(2) is constitutional. The judgment of the district court is reversed.”

This shows that ministers are not entitled to the benefit, therefore Congress could repeal it. “It’s an injustice not just to us, but to taxpayers who have to pay more than their share, because clergy pay less,” Gaylor says.

Nor did the appeals court decision address the problem that the financial benefits apply even to wealthy ministers. “The manner in which our housing allowance has been used borders on clergy malpractice,” William Thornton, a Georgia pastor and blogger, told Forbes magazine in 2013. “A growing subset of ministers who are very highly paid and who live in multi-million dollar mansions are able to exclude hundreds of thousands of dollars from income taxation.”

You can see the way the courts get around something that’s palpably unconstitutional but whose elimination would piss off a lot of religious people. “Religion” simply becomes “American history.”

What’s next? I suppose the FFRF is weighing an appeal, but you know where that would go: to the U.S. Supreme Court. With that court stacked with conservative, god-fearing Justices, the prospects don’t look good. And so a chink has appeared in the wall between church and state. Jefferson would be appalled.

British police threatened atheist for posting a nonbeliever sign in his yard

February 7, 2019 • 8:45 am

This story is from 2012, but the law still applies in the UK. The Public Order Act of 1986 remains in force, and it specifies this:

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he:

(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting
thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.
(2) An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or the writing, sign or other visible representation is displayed, by a person inside a dwelling and the person who is harassed, alarmed or distressed is also inside that or another dwelling.\
(3) It is a defence for the accused to prove:

(a) that he was inside a dwelling and had no reason to believe that the words or behaviour used, or the writing, sign or other visible representation displayed, would be heard or seen by a person outside that or any other dwelling, or
(b) that his conduct was reasonable.

A fair number of readers have defended the “hate speech” laws of places like Canada and Germany, saying that these laws don’t make those countries any more dysfunctional than the U.S., where “hate speech” is legal. But for those who do defend “hate speech” laws, put this in your pipe and smoke it.

According to The Friendly Atheist, who got the story from the UK paper The Boston Standard, in 2012, a Brit named John Richards put up a small, letter-sized sheet of paper in his window that read as follows:

Photo from the Boston Standard

 

Yep, that horrible message, which happens to be true, that “Religions are fairy stories for adults.”

And for that Mr. Richards has been threatened by the police. The Boston Standard notes, in an updated report, that if anybody complains because they were offended by Richards’s poster, the coppers will ask him to take the sheet down. If Richards doesn’t comply, he faces arrest. As the paper notes, (my emphasis):

Officers say that they have not told John Richards he is committing an offence for displaying the poster but said he could only face arrest if he causes offence and refuses to take the poster down when they ask.

In a statement Lincolnshire Police said the 1986 Public Order Act states that a person is guilty of an offence if they display a sign which is threatening or abusive or insulting with the intent to provoke violence or which may cause another person harassment, alarm or distress.

The statement adds: “This is balanced with a right to free speech and the key point is that the offence is committed if it is deemed that a reasonable person would find the content insulting.

“If a complaint is received by the police in relation to a sign displayed in a person’s window, an officer would attend and make a reasoned judgement about whether an offence had been committed under the Act.

“In the majority of cases where it was considered that an offence had been committed, the action taken by the officer would be to issue words of advice and request that the sign be removed. “Only if this request were refused might an arrest be necessary.

Well isn’t that peachy? They give the guy a chance to do the right thing before taking him in.

Note that, according to the constabulary, the “right to free speech” is balanced here by a legal right not to be harassed, or even “alarmed or distressed.” I’m sorry, but that ludicrous balance is the basis of “hate speech” laws, and it’s not only dumb, but it’s inimical to free discourse. As Stephen Fry said, you don’t have the right not to be offended.

Here’s another example of alarming and distressing speech in Britain:

Source: Akira Suemori / AP

Now in this case somebody could complain to the bus company, which would be threatened with legal action if it didn’t take down the posters.  And of course the famous bus posters were offensive to many believers, but who among us would argue that people have a right not to see these words?

And would you say that Richards’s sign is okay, but one that said, “There was probably no Holocaust” is illegal and should be banned? For such signs are illegal—in Germany and, I think, in Canada. This shows the slippery line between hate speech and free speech—and the reason why the line doesn’t exist in America. One person’s free speech, as I always say, is another person’s hate speech. Do not underrate the propensity of people to be alarmed or distressed by things that most of us would consider innocuous.

I won’t go on except to give free-speech advocate and attorney Ken White’s take on this ridiculous “Public Order Act” on the Popehat site:

. . . I’d like to say a word about character.

What is the character of a person who sees a sign like that in a pensioner’s window, and runs to the police to complain?

Could a person with such character stand up, against great odds, in the face of the the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt? Could such a person do his duty, as England expected, at Trafalgar? Could such a person keep calm and carry on? Would such a person fight on beaches, on landing grounds, in fields and streets, in the hills, and never surrender? Is such a person capable of having a finest hour?

I ask because of this: societies that make rules like this one, encouraging its citizens to scamper mewling behind the skirts of the government when faced with the least offense, produce people with the character necessary to take them up on the offer. It is hard to imagine how a nation run by people of that character can endure — or at least, how it can endure as anyplace you’d want to live.

I would add “It’s hard to imagine how a college inhabited by people of that character could endure.” But many American colleges are just like that, and we’ll hear about one later today.

I’d be glad to hear from readers who think that there is a defensible line between free speech and hate speech, and, if you comment on this, please tell me exactly where that line is.

_____________

UPDATE: If you want a more recent example of thought policing by the UK cops, this is new (click on screenshot). Remember, he didn’t even write the damn tweet, he just liked it.

Canada repeals its blasphemy law

December 13, 2018 • 12:15 pm

Thanks to several humanist groups, the Canadian blasphemy law, which hasn’t been much used, has just been repealed. As reported by Humanists UK, the bill passed the Canadian Parliament two days ago and now “awaits royal assent”. (Those ties to the UK still irk me. Why the hell does the Queen have to certify this?)

More:

The repeal followed an e-petition by humanist groups across Canada which called for an end to Section 296. The petition gained 7,400 signatures.In response, the Canadian Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould, confirmed that repeal of the blasphemy law was being considered as part of a wider package of justice reform, and in 2017 the Government introduced the Bill to repeal the law.

. . . Canada will be the latest country to repeal its blasphemy laws, following France, Malta, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark. Ireland is also set to repeal its law following a referendum on the matter in October. Legislation is also being advanced to repeal blasphemy laws in Spain and New Zealand.

Who says that humanist groups can’t accomplish anything?

Now this law hasn’t been much used, like most blasphemy laws in Western countries; but it’s offensive and potentially dangerous to have offense criminalized, even if only on the books. Here’s Canada’s law that was just repealed (click on screenshot to see it on the site:

Note, though, that this is just “blasphemous libel,” which Wikipedia characterizes for Canada as “the publication of material which exposes the Christian religion to scurrility, vilification, ridicule, and contempt, and the material must have the tendency to shock and outrage the feelings of Christians.” I’m not sure if you can still blaspheme other faiths!

And note that Canada retains numerous hate speech laws, with many of the provinces having one or another version of laws that criminalize publication of material promulgating hatred involving the usual factors. Here, for example, is the one from Manitoba:

Manitoba’s The Human Rights Code allows an adjudicator to order inter alia that a respondent pay damages for injury to dignity, feelings or self-respect in an amount that the adjudicator considers “just and appropriate”, and to pay a penalty or exemplary damages (up to $2000 in the case of an individual respondent; up to $10,000 in any other case) if malice or recklessness is involved. Manitoba’s Code is unique in having an “analogous grounds” provision. Complaints can be based not only on the listed grounds (such as sex, age, national origin, etc.), but also on grounds analogous to the listed ones. For example, the Manitoba Human Rights Commission currently accepts complaints based on gender identity.

These aren’t the same thing as blasphemous libel, so the humanists and free-speech advocates still have a lot of work to do.

 

h/t: Grania

The FFRF victory in Charleston, Illinois

December 7, 2018 • 4:00 pm

Here’s a very short video featuring the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s staff attorney Ryan Jayne, who wrote the letter to the Charleston, Illinois’s city attorney pointing out that their sponsored trip to the Creation Museum and Ark Park was unconstitutional. They won within 24 hours, with Charleston canceling the trip. So where is my second “Censor of the Year” award?

PCC(E) makes a cameo appearance.

h/t: John, Michael

Victory! Charleston, Illinois cancels city-sponsored trip to creationist sites

December 4, 2018 • 12:15 pm

I’ve just heard from the FFRF that the City Attorney for Charleston, Illinois, to whom the FFRF wrote to about the unconstitutionality of their city-sponsored trip to the Ark Park and Creation Museum, has sent the following email. The city has bailed.

Thank you for your email below and letter attached dated December 3, 2018. The purpose of this email is to inform you that The Ark Encounter & Creation Museum trip has been cancelled. The trip has been removed from the City of Charleston’s website and online registration portal.

The attorney knew that the city was on the losing side of the issue, and I’m sure Charleston didn’t want to go to court about this. It’s a small town and couldn’t afford it.

Anyway, even though they had to be threatened, they did the right thing. The battle to keep religion out of government is never ending, but the FFRF has to keep it up, because this truly is a slippery slope. Each victory for the entanglement of religion and politics makes it easier to entangle them further.