Hot Topic at AALS

[Brownstein, Alan]

Looks like a great panel on an important topic, Doug.  My compliments to whoever put it together.

Alan Brownstein
________________________________
From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Douglas Laycock [laycockd at umich.edu]
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 7:03 AM
To: religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Hot Topic at AALS

A late addition to the program:

Pulpit Freedom?:  On Taxes, Elections, and Religious Freedom

Location, Date, and Time
Hot Topics Panel, AALS 2009 Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA
Thursday, January 8th, 8:30-10:15 a.m.

Description

The relationship between church and state has always been fraught with
tension, as some advocate a strict separationist approach and others support
interaction on various levels.  In May 2008, a conservative religious
freedom group, the Alliance Defense Fund, launched an organized campaign to
challenge one particular flashpoint for disagreement:  the extent to which
pastors, rabbis, imams, and other religious leaders speaking to their
congregations should be able to express views about politics and
particularly about candidates for public office.  Thanks to a federal tax
provision, churches and other houses of worship have in theory had to either
restrain their leaders from expressing such views from the pulpit or face
the loss of the significant tax benefits they enjoy.  The recruitment by the
ADF of pastors at more than 30 churches to challenge this restriction on
First Amendment grounds, and the demands from supporters of a strong
separation between church and state for the IRS to enforce the restriction
against these churches have brought this flashpoint to the fore.  The panel
will discuss the legal and public policy rationales that support and oppose
the restriction and also this looming confrontation's broader ramifications
for religious freedom, elections, and federal tax law.

Panel Members

Marci A. Hamilton (Cardozo):  Professor Hamilton is the Paul R. Verkuil
Chair in Public Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and an expert
on church/state relations.  Her most recent books are Justice Denied: What
America Must Do to Protect Its Children (2008) and God vs. the Gavel:
Religion and the Rule of Law (2005), and she has published numerous articles
on law and religion issues including The Religious Origins of
Disestablishment Principles, 81 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1755 (2006) (with Rachel
Steamer), What Does "Religion" Mean in the Public Square?, 89 Minn. L. Rev.
1153 (2005), and Religious Institutions, the No-Harm Doctrine, and the
Public Good, 2004 BYU L. Rev. 1099.

Vaughn E. James (Texas Tech):  Professor James is both an expert on
religious freedom and an ordained minister, with a Master of Divinity degree
from Andrews University.  His recent articles include The African-American
Church, Political Activity, and Tax Exemption, 37 Seton Hall L. Rev. 371
(2007), and Reaping Where They Have Not Sowed: Have American Churches Failed
to Satisfy the Requirements for the Religious Tax Exemptions?, 43 Cath. Law
29 (2004).

Douglas Laycock (Michigan):  Professor Laycock is the Yale Kamisar
Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School and an
expert on religious liberty.  He is a co-editor of Same-Sex Marriage and
Religious Liberty:  Emerging Conflicts (2008).  His recent articles on
religious freedom issues include Why the Supreme Court Changed its Mind
about Government Aid to Religious Institutions: It's a Lot more than Just
Republican Appointments, 2008 BYU L. Rev. 275, Regulatory Exemptions of
Religious Behavior and the Original Understanding of the Establishment
Clause, 81 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1793 (2006), and Theology Scholarships, the
Pledge of Allegiance, and Religious Liberty: Avoiding the Extremes but
Missing the Liberty, 118 Harv. L. Rev. 155 (2004).

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer (Notre Dame) (moderator):  Professor Mayer represented
nonprofit organizations with respect to advocacy and election-related
activities for nine years before joining the faculty of Notre Dame in 2005.
His research has continued to focus on the regulation of such activities,
including the following articles:  What is This "Lobbying" That We Are So
Worried About?, 26 Yale L. & Pol'y Rev. 485 (2008); The Much Maligned 527
and Institutional Choice, 87 B.U. L. Rev. 625 (2007)); and Grasping Smoke:
Enforcing the Prohibition on Campaign Intervention by Charities, 6 First
Amend. L. Rev. 1 (2007).  His most recent work in progress focuses on the
issue of pastors speaking about politics from the pulpit (The Pulpit,
Politics, RFRA, and Institutional Free Exercise).

Bernadette A. Meyler (Cornell University):  Professor Meyler is an expert on
law and religion as well as on British and American legal history and the
intersections between constitutional and common law.  Her recent articles
include Commerce in Religion, 84 Notre Dame L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2008),
The Limits of Group Rights: Religious Institutions and Religious Minorities
in International Law, 22 St. John's J. Leg. Commentary 535 (2007), and The
Equal Protection of Free Exercise: Two Approaches and Their History, 47 B.C.
L. Rev. 275 (2006).

Donald B. Tobin (Ohio State University):  Professor Tobin is the Associate
Dean for Academic Affairs at the Michael E. Moritz College of Law at the
Ohio State University and an expert on both the political activities of
nonprofit organizations and federal income taxation.  His recent articles
include Political Campaigning by Churches and Charities: Hazardous for
501(c)(3)s; Dangerous for Democracy, 95 Geo. L.J. 1313 (2007), Political
Advocacy and Taxable Entities, Are They the Next "Loophole"?, 6 First Amend.
L. Rev. 41 (2007), and Anonymous Speech and Section 527 of the Internal
Revenue Code: Can Congress Use the Tax Code as a Mechanism for Campaign
Finance Reform?, 37 Ga. L. Rev. 611 (2003).

Robert W. Tuttle (George Washington University):  Professor Tuttle is the
Sherry Kirschner Berz Research Professor of Law and Religion at the George
Washington University Law School and an expert on church-state law.  He
serves as legal counsel to the bishop of the Washington, DC, Synod of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and, with Professor Ira Lupu, as
co-director of the Legal Tracking Project of the Roundtable on Religion and
Social Welfare Policy.  His recent articles include The Cross and the
College: Accommodation and Acknowledgment of Religion at Public
Universities, 17 William & Mary Bill of Rights J. 938 (2008) (with Ira C.
Lupu), Federalism and Faith, 56 Emory L. J. 19 (2006) (with Ira C. Lupu),
and The Faith-Based Initiative and the Constitution, 55 DePaul L. Rev. 1
(2005) (with Ira C. Lupu).




Douglas Laycock
Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School
625 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1215
  734-647-9713
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