Blog of Rights
Daniel
Mach
06/13/2012
Using Religion to Discriminate

North Dakotans Reject A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

By Daniel Mach at 9:38am

Yesterday, voters across North Dakota wisely rejected Measure 3, a proposed amendment to the state constitution that could have undermined crucial health, safety, and civil rights protections in the state. Measure 3, the so-called “Religious Liberty Restoration Amendment,” would have created a new, vastly expanded constitutional right to invoke religious freedom as an excuse to discriminate, ignore existing state and local laws, and claim an entitlement to taxpayer funds and other state benefits. The vote was a victory for all North Dakotans, the great majority of whom recognize that religious freedom need not come at the expense of other cherished rights and values. 

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09/13/2011
Sharia

Defending the Indefensible: Oklahoma Struggles to Salvage Its Unconstitutional Sharia Ban

By Daniel Mach at 2:06pm

Are all faiths equal under the law? Does the fundamental right to worship in this country depend on approval of the majority? These questions lie at the heart of a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations to Oklahoma's "Save Our State Amendment," which bars state courts from applying — or even considering — Islamic "Sharia law" and "international law."

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08/09/2011
Disability Rights

A Day in Court for Civil Rights Claims: The Supreme Court Tackles the Ministerial Exception

By Daniel Mach at 3:44pm

Do religious institutions get a categorical free pass to discriminate against certain employees, regardless of the reason? That issue lies at the heart of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed today by the ACLU, the ACLU of Michigan, and a coalition of religious liberty organizations, we argue that the answer must be a resounding "no."

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10/09/2009

The Court and the Cross

By Daniel Mach at 3:08pm

(Originally posted on ACSBlog.)

The Supreme Court heard argument last Wednesday in Salazar v. Buono, an Establishment Clause challenge to the federal government's display of a Latin cross in the Mojave National Preserve. The Court's questions focused largely on esoteric procedural doctrine, and while it's always risky to predict the outcome of a case based on oral argument, it seems unlikely the Court will rule on the broader constitutional issues in the case - namely, whether the plaintiff, a devout Catholic and former National Park Service employee, had standing to challenge the display of the cross; and whether, before it tried to transfer the cross to a private party, the government violated the First Amendment by displaying the sectarian symbol on federal land. (The lower courts decided those issues in favor of the plaintiff in the first round of the case, and the Bush Administration chose not to seek Supreme Court review at the time. As a result, the Court now appears disinclined to revisit those rulings.)

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01/29/2007

Not on Our Dime

By Daniel Mach at 12:53pm
All too often, governments shirk their constitutional responsibility to guard against taxpayer-funded proselytization. It was therefore a welcome development in late 2003 when the State of Michigan, on its own initiative, stopped financing and sending kids to Teen Ranch, a residential youth services program that had been indoctrinating children on the taxpayers' dime.
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