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Religious Institutions Establishment Clause First Amendment

Holland & Knight LLP

Religious Institutions Update: March 2023

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Donors State Claims for Misuse of Their Funds, But Not as a Class Action - In Carrier v. Ravi Zacharias Int'l Ministries, Inc. No. 1:21-CV-3161-TWT, 2022 WL 1540206 (N.D. Ga. May 13, 2022) and Carrier v. Ravi Zacharias...more

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Religious Institutions Update: January 2023

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Vaccination Mandate Conforms with First Amendment In Kane v. De Blasio, No. 21 Civ. 7863, 21 Civ. 8773, 2022 WL 3701183 (S.D. N.Y. Aug. 26, 2022), the district court ruled that New York City Department of Education employees...more

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Religious Institutions Update: July 2022

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Maine Scholarship Program Excluding Sectarian Schools Unconstitutional. In Carson v. Makin, 142 S.Ct. 1987 (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court struck a tuition assistance program that requires school districts to transmit payment...more

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Religious Institutions Update: July 2021

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Ministerial Exception Doctrine Bars Minister-on-Minister Hostile Work Environment Claim In Demkovich v. St. Andrew the Apostle Parish, Calumet City, No. 19-2142, 2021 WL 2880232 (7th Cir. July 9, 2021), the U.S. Court of...more

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart,...

No Taxation With Religious Invocation: Seventh Circuit’s Decision to Impact Ministerial Employees

In Gaylor v. Mnuchin, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that a tax code exemption for religious housing of ministers does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution....more

Proskauer - Not for Profit/Exempt...

Parsonage Exclusion Found by Seventh Circuit to Be Constitutional

On March 15, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held in Gaylor v. Mnuchin that the tax exemption for “ministers of the gospel” (defined below) under Section 107(2) of the Internal Revenue Code (the...more

Husch Blackwell LLP

Housing Allowance Appellate Decision Secures Millions In Tax Savings For Clergy

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Key Points- The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals found the tax-free housing allowance that ministers receive from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to be constitutional....more

Holland & Knight LLP

Religious Institutions Update: January 2019 - Lex Est Sanctio Sancta

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Courts continue to grapple with the scope and meaning of the ministerial exception doctrine. In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171 (2012), the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that a...more

Robinson+Cole RLUIPA Defense

Islamic Community Center Denied Variance Needed to Operate Mosque; Files Lawsuit Against Michigan City

Earlier this month, an Islamic community center filed suit against the City of Troy, Michigan (“City”) after the City denied the group’s application for a variance needed to operate a mosque at the property it owns in the...more

Robinson+Cole RLUIPA Defense

Coffee Shop Church’s Claims Survive Motion to Dismiss, City Amends Code to Permit Use

A federal court in Maryland has denied the City of Laurel, Maryland’s (“City”) motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Redemption Community Church (“Church”). ...more

Holland & Knight LLP

Religious Institutions Update: September 2018 - Lex Est Sanctio Sancta

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Key Cases - Establishment Challenge to Presidential Proclamation Subject to Rational Basis Review - In Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S.Ct. 2392 (2018), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the lowest level of constitutional...more

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Religious Institutions Update: June 2018 - Lex Est Sanctio Sancta

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Since 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court has expressly construed a neutral law of general applicability as consistent with the free exercise clause. Deeming Colorado's public accommodations law just such a law, the Colorado Court...more

Robinson+Cole RLUIPA Defense

Religious Land Use Controversy Brewing in Laurel, Maryland: Can a Church Worship in a Coffee Shop?

Redemption Community Church (the “Church”) has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Laurel, Maryland (the “City”), after the City issued a cease and desist order prohibiting the Church from offering religious services...more

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Religious Institutions Update: January 2018 - Lex Est Sanctio Sancta

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Timely Topics - By Shannon B. Hartsfield - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Jan. 18, 2018, the creation of a new division within its Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR is described as...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Tenth Circuit Answers Questions Left Open Following Supreme Court’s Advocate Health Network v. Stapleton Decision, Significantly...

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Seyfarth Synopsis: In Medina v. Catholic Health Initiatives, — F.3d —, 2017 WL 6459961 (10th Cir. Dec. 19, 2017), the Tenth Circuit held that a retirement plan sponsored by Catholic Health Initiatives (“CHI”), a...more

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Religious Institutions Update: November 2017 - Lex Est Sanctio Sancta

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Timely Topics - Serious data breaches have become routine in the United States, yet a recent survey shows that the majority of religious institutions do not have a full-time IT professional, have no system to detect a...more

Robinson+Cole RLUIPA Defense

Additional Eruv Disputes in New Jersey

We recently posted about a lawsuit filed by Bergen Rockland Eruv Association, Inc. (“BREA”) against the Township of Mahwah, New Jersey, regarding a dispute over the expansion of an eruv. Since then, eruv disputes have evoked...more

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

Case Report: Public Finance Implications of Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer

In Public Finance, questions on separation of church and state usually arise in the context of a conduit financing by a state or local governmental entity which benefits a religious organization. The religious organization...more

Mintz - Public Finance Viewpoints

Tax-Exempt Financing of Churches, Parochial Schools and Other Sectarian Institutions After Trinity Lutheran Church: Permitted? ...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 26 opinion in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, precluding states from discriminating against churches in at least some state financing programs, raises anew the question of...more

Carlton Fields

Preserving Constitutional Issues: Three States, Three Cases, One Hard Lesson

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Late last year, three states illustrated an important point about preserving constitutional law issues for appeal: always be on the lookout for constitutional law issues at the beginning of the case. ...more

Holland & Knight LLP

Religious Institutions Update: February 2017

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Timely Topics - A draft executive order of President Donald Trump relating to religious freedom proposes several material changes to federal law. First, it would require the executive branches to recognize a broad scope...more

Robinson+Cole RLUIPA Defense

Third Circuit Upholds District Court Decision in Pennsylvania Baptist Church Sign Case

Recently, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals entered an order upholding the district court’s decision in the case of Tearpock-Martini v. Shickshinny Borough, which we reported on last summer. The case involved an...more

Littler

NLRB Expands Jurisdiction in Church-Operated Schools, Distinguishing Between "Religious" and "Secular" Instruction in Faculty...

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In two recent cases, the National Labor Relations Board distinguished between faculty members providing secular instruction and those providing religious instruction, in concluding that only those providing religious...more

Robinson+Cole RLUIPA Defense

RLUIPA Defense/Rocky Mountain Sign Law Joint Blog Post: Pennsylvania Borough’s Church Directional Signs Did Not Violate the...

Late last month, a federal district court in Pennsylvania ruled that directional signs to a church, which contained images of a cross and bible, did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Minister or Not? Gay Bias Case Turns on Employee’s Role

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Seyfarth Synopsis: A federal judge has allowed a discrimination lawsuit to proceed against the Archdiocese of Chicago. The plaintiff alleges that his engagement to another man resulted in his termination. The church sought...more

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