Burying in pigskin

[Rob Weinberg]

At 10:30 PM 11/1/02 -0800, Volokh, Eugene wrote:

>         The curious thing here is that to the majority, and to those in
> government, burial in pigskin does not have religious significance (as
> opposed to, say, putting up the Ten Commandments or saying school
> prayers, which is largely done precisely because those in power see those
> acts as having religious significance).  It's neither sacred nor
> sacrilegious to them.  They are simply trying to use what they know to be
> the religious sentiments of others, in order to try to prevent "the
> secular aspect" of future crimes by those others.  Does that make a difference?


Isn't this the same kind of argument in the prisoner/probationer AA/NA
12-step programs that have been challenged successfully in the last few
years? That is, requiring attendance in a 12-step program as a condition of
probation or early parole has a decidedly secular purpose (addressing
drug/alcohol abuse which leads to various crimes), but when the means to
achieve it has sectarian or religion-based overtones it violates the EC?

-Rob
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/private/religionlaw/attachments/20021102/a904f404/attachment.htm