Landmark First Amendment Religion Litigation?

[Lawyer2974 at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/26/2007 1:11:21 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
mnewsom at law.howard.edu writes:
I will defer to those who know this area of the law better than I do,
but, isn't it the case that secular courts will impose secular notions
of procedural due process on adjudications by religious bodies? No, indeed 
quite to the contrary and appropriately so

If that
is so, then this case may be but so important, if it turns out that the
Episcopal Bishop transgressed those secular due process norms.  And if
that be the case, then isn't the appropriate judicial remedy a judgment
directing the Episcopal Bishop to give Moyer a "fair" trial?
One more thought that may be even more important:  if the Episcopal
Church's own rules contain due process protections and the Episcopal
Bishop has failed to follow them, then isn't it appropriate for a
secular court at least to order the religious organization to follow its
own rules, quite apart from any notions of constitutional (i.e. secular)
due process?  No, the state has no constitutionally permissible role in 
ensuring that ecclesiastical process either meets secular notions of due process or 
in enforcing what it interprets to be the process selected at any given point 
in time by an ecclesiastical body


While I have not read any opinion that may have accompanied this judge's 
order, the press report, if accurate, suggests that this judge has strayed beyond 
both federal and state constitutional boundaries...I have obtained the exact 
opposite outcome in a case raising similar issues from another judge in 
Montgomery County

Donald C. Clark, Jr.
2333 Waukegan Road
Suite 160
Bannockburn, Illinois 60015
847-236-0900
847-236-0909 (fax)


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