Foreign Funding of American Mosques

[David Cruz]

On Fri, 19 Oct 2001, David Bernstein wrote:

> [snip]  Let's assume that the US passed a law banning foreign
> governments (or some subset thereof, such as governments on a list of
> terrorist sponsors) from contributing to American religious organizations
> [snip].  Does the right to free
> exercise of religion include the right of religious organizations to receive
> funding from foreign governments?  From foreign non-resident individuals?

If the hypothetical law is as targeted as described, perhaps the more
likely dispositive constitutional question would be whether free exercise
and/or disestablishment and/or equal protection etc. include the right of
religious organizations to be eligible to receive funding from foreign
governments on the same terms as secular organizations.  The law David
posits would allow foreign governments to fund non-religious private
schools and other secular organizations, and whether this discriminatory
targeting should be subject to strict scrutiny (as Lukumi suggests) or per
se unconstitutional (see, e.g., Marci Hamilton's published criticisms of
Lukumi), it sounds impermissible to me.

-David B. Cruz, USC Law (Cal.)