Court upholds prison no-pork policy against EstablishmentClause challenge

[Steven Jamar]

And France clearly pushes a form of universalism as a national value in a way this country has not for some time.

On Apr 12, 2012, at 10:26 AM, Finkelman, Paul <paul.finkelman at albanylaw.edu> wrote:

> The french experience with intolerance is very different than ours and thu leads to different outcomes and paths.  
> 
> Connected by DROID on Verizon Wireless
> 
> 
> -----Original message-----
> From: "Friedman, Howard M." <HOWARD.FRIEDMAN at utoledo.edu>
> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu>
> Sent: Thu, Apr 12, 2012 03:10:57 GMT+00:00
> Subject: RE: Court upholds prison no-pork policy against EstablishmentClause challenge
> 
> It is interesting to compare reactions in Europe to similar situations. In 2010, French politicians strongly criticized a restaurant chain that decided to serve only halal meat in 8 of its restaurants with a large Muslim clientele. Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire said: "When they remove all the pork from a restaurant open to the public, I think they fall into communalism, which is against the principles and the spirit of the French republic."
> See: http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2010/02/french-politicians-criticize-restaurant.html
> 
> In 2007 in Britain, a primary school in Kingsgate attempted to accommodate religious needs of its growing Muslim student body by serving only Halal meat in its lunch menus. A number of parents objected, arguing that the school was forcing their children to to conform to "someone else's culture."
> See http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2007/02/british-parents-protest-halal-menus-in.html
> 
> 
> Howard Friedman
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu on behalf of Volokh, Eugene
> Sent: Wed 4/11/2012 7:46 PM
> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> Subject: RE: Court upholds prison no-pork policy against EstablishmentClause    challenge
> 
>                 I agree entirely; I mention this partly because I occasionally hear pork bans as examples of quintessential violations of the Establishment Clause, though I don't think they would be.
> 
> To be sure, a general pork ban might have a different motivation than a prison decision not to serve pork.  But at the same time even a general pork ban could certainly be an attempt to accommodate a religious group by minimizing the risk that its members will accidentally ingest pork (or that its members might be put in a position where their employment would require the handling or even sampling of pork).  And just as the state of California is free to ban the sale of horsemeat for human consumption (as it did in 1998), so it should be free to ban the sale of pork - not that I'd ever endorse that as a policy matter!
> 
> Eugene
> 
> From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Ira Lupu
> Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 4:32 PM
> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> Subject: Re: Court upholds prison no-pork policy against Establishment Clause challenge
> 
> Is this outcome surprising in any way?  Does anyone on the list believe that the court got this wrong? (I certainly don't).
> 
> If Congress overrode HHS and eliminated pregnancy prevention services from mandatory coverage by employers under the Affordable Care Act, wouldn't the analysis be just the same (imposition of a uniform policy to avoid religious conflict, avoid any need to create controversial exceptions for religious entities, avoid piece-meal litigation, and ease administration of the overall scheme), even though the impetus for change derived from a demand by some for religious accommodation?
> On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 6:48 PM, Volokh, Eugene <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu<mailto:VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>> wrote:
> River v. Mohr (N.D. Ohio Apr. 5, 2012), http://volokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/RiversvMohr.pdf .
> 
> Eugene
> 
> _______________________________________________
> To post, send message to Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu<mailto:Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu>
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
> 
> Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Ira C. Lupu
> F. Elwood & Eleanor Davis Professor of Law
> George Washington University Law School
> 2000 H St., NW
> Washington, DC 20052
> (202)994-7053
> My SSRN papers are here:
> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=181272#reg
> 
> _______________________________________________
> To post, send message to Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
> 
> Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.


-- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar                     vox:  202-806-8017
Associate Director, Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice http://iipsj.org
Howard University School of Law           fax:  202-806-8567
http://iipsj.com/SDJ/

"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man."

- Martin Luther King Jr., "Strength to Love", 1963    





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ucla.edu/pipermail/religionlaw/attachments/20120412/91470d2d/attachment.html>