When a pastor gets a marriage license from the state are they required to marry homosexuals? I've heard a lot of controversy over whether or not pastors who deny same sex couples should be fined, jailed, etc. If the pastor is licensed by the state don't they then have to be religiously unbiased like any government employee or establishment?
The connection between priests and marriage is via laws regulating the solemnization of marriage. Washington's RCW 26.04.050 is typical: ...Justices of the supreme court, judges of the court of appeals, judges of the superior courts, supreme court commissioners, court of appeals commissioners, superior court commissioners, any regularly licensed or ordained minister or any priest, imam, rabbi, or similar official of any religious organization, and judges of courts of limited jurisdiction as defined in RCW 3.02.010 Not ship captains, notice. Solemnization is not required. RCW 26.04.010(4) says No regularly licensed or ordained minister or any priest, imam, rabbi, or similar official of any religious organization is required to solemnize or recognize any marriage. A regularly licensed or ordained minister or priest, imam, rabbi, or similar official of any religious organization shall be immune from any civil claim or cause of action based on a refusal to solemnize or recognize any marriage under this section. There is no similar waiver for non-religious officiants. The First Amendment is theoretically what has limited governments ability to require priests to violate their religious beliefs; but I would not be surprised if that changes in the near future. In which case, permissive laws like the Washington law could be trumped by federal anti-discrimination law.
The various news stories are somewhat unclear about what this bill actually does, so let us look at the text of the bill. The bill would (in addition to other changes not specifically connected with sexual identity or orientation) create section 1001.42 (8)(c)(3), reading: A school district may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students. Exactly what it means for &quot;A school district&quot; to &quot;encourage classroom discussion&quot; is less than clear. If such discussion is not on the syllabus, nor suggested by the administration, but a teacher starts it, would this law ban it? Note that no penalty is specified for violation, although parental suits against a school district are authorized by the new subsaection 1001.42 (8)(c)(4). On its face the bill appears to prohibit the district from &quot;encouraging&quot; any such discussion in the primary grades (K-3 it seems), and from encouraging it if such discussion is not &quot;age-appropriate&quot; in other grades. As to the question of whether this bill, if it becomes law (as seems likely) would violate anyone's constitutional rights, that is a bit tricky. Teachers and students both have First Admendment rights even during school (see Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) for the key case) but this bill does not purport to prohibit a teacher from making any particular statement. The state does have considerable authority to regulate the curriculum of schools, particularly public schools, and what shall occur there. How this provision would be enforced, and what sort of speech, if any, was actually prohibited under it would probably be important in any lawsuit over its constitutionality. A law that prohibited any mention of sexual identity in school would probably be unconstitutional, but this bill does not claim to do that. If it does that in practice, that would probably weigh against it.
Freedom of Religion Concerns I doubt that this policy would be held to be unlawful on First Amendment freedom of religion grounds. Indeed, such requirements usually exclude church-related service. Also, I don't see how this policy discriminates against your religion specifically. It seems on its face to apply to all religions equally. Even if "Church-related" is read broadly to include both service that benefits a church, and also service that is organized by a church, that doesn't preclude you from coming up with some other kind of service that is neither of these things. Why would you be prevented from coming up with service that is neither of these things when other students do not? Unless you have also undertaken Holy Orders or something, in which case 100% of your time away from school would be devoted to your church, it is hard to see what the problem would be with this requirement for you as opposed to someone else. And, it would probably be improper for a public school to allow you to use religious activities to satisfy a graduation requirement - that would sound like an establishment clause violation. Some of the relevant U.S. Supreme Court cases are: Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) This pair of cases shaped the modern understanding of how the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment constrains prayer in public schools. In Engel, the Court struck down a New York State rule that allowed public schools to hold a short, nondenominational prayer at the beginning of the school day. The Court decided that these prayers amounted to an “official stamp of approval” upon one particular kind of prayer and religious service, and said that, since teachers are agents of the federal government, the scheme violated the Establishment Clause. The reasoning in Engel was also applied in Schempp, in which the Court struck down a Pennsylvania policy that required all students to read 10 Bible verses and say the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of each day. While a student could get an exemption with a parent’s note, the Warren Court decided that this still amounted to an unconstitutional government endorsement of a particular religious tradition. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) This case adjudicated a different sort of Establishment Clause challenge, where the controversy dealt with a statute providing financial support for teacher salaries and textbooks in parochial schools. The Burger Court unanimously decided that this financial aid scheme violated the Establishment Clause and delineated the governing precedent for Establishment Clause cases known as the Lemon test. Under Lemon, statutes (1) must have a secular legislative purpose; (2) must have primary effects that neither inhibit nor advance religion; and (3) cannot foster an “excessive government entanglement with religion.” The Court held that this scheme violated the third prong of the Lemon test. Allowing Church-related community service projects could implicate both the second and third prongs of the Lemon test. In a pertinent ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld a state constitutional requirement that no public funds be used to assist religious organizations, even if this prevented a facially neutral voucher program from treating religious and non-religious schools equally. The opinion in this 2015 case reviews some of the relevant law. A critical portion of the analysis is that aid to religious institutions must be limited to institutions that do not discriminate on the basis of religion and that supporting religious institutions at the K-12 level is more of a concern than doing so at the higher educational level. A Church, however, would (and should) discriminate on the basis of religion. In General There has been consideration of whether community service requirements, in general, are constitutional. Generally, courts have upheld the programs. See also here. In particular, Rhode Island is in the 1st Circuit of the federal courts, which has expressly ruled that community service requirements are constitutional. A 1999 law review article in the Duke Law Journal considers the issue from several perspectives. So does a 1997 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review article. A 1916 case called Butler v. Perry is a particularly strong precedent in favor of the proposition that mandatory service is constitutional, despite arguments to the contrary under the 13th Amendment. The issue was discussed in the New York Times in a 2003 article. Both are concerned about the involuntary servitude aspect of the requirement, but given that school attendance may be mandatory, and a community service requirement is one, relatively unconstrained aspect of mandatory educational activity, this isn't a very easy case to make.
Interesting question. I routinely write wills that authorize the executor to destroy property that has no significant economic or sentimental value, but I've never encountered a case where a testator or testatrix has directed that property be destroyed and I've never seen a reported case (or even a news report) in which that has happened. To the extent that an estate is solvent, there is no reason that a creditor could complain and if the destruction was done in a safe manner (as opposed to burning down a house or something like that without consulting the fire department) I'm not sure that there would be a public interest in doing so either. There are many religions that had a practice historically of burying someone with grave goods, so there are reasonable First Amendment freedom of religion arguments for allowing such a practice if it had a religious basis. And, if no interested party objected, I don't see how anyone could stop the executor from acting, unless the property to be destroyed was, for example, evidence of a crime, in which case it would be a crime to destroy it and the provision of the will would be void because it was a crime to carry it out. If an executor sought permission from a court to carry out this instruction, the court might require a public notice of the planned destruction to give notice to any third party who might claim an ownership interest in the property allegedly belonging to the decedent. On the other hand, usually, all interested parties in an estate can agree to act contrary to a will by unanimous consent, in which case no one would have standing to fight for the provision in court (unless it was considered a charitable bequest, in which case a state attorney general or an advocate appointed by the court with the "will" as the client could defend it). Given the strong public policies in the law disfavoring "waste" (i.e. useless destruction of property) such a provision could be held to be void as against public policy (similarly, bequests contingent upon marriage decisions are now void as against public policy).
It is perfectly legal and, many would argue, reasonable to have secular reasons to do something that happen to align with religious reasons. In other words, just because there's a religious reason to do something doesn't invalidate secular reasons to do the same thing. The New York Times had an article in 2013 that explained the origin of the federal holidays in 1870: Congress acknowledged that Jan. 1 is "commonly called New Year's Day" and Dec. 25 is "commonly called Christmas Day." and further on in the article: If you read the language of the [1870] bill, it's clear that Congress chose dates commonly celebrated as holidays by the American people, not for religious reasons but because of a history of recognition and celebration on those dates. The federal holidays make sense from an efficiency perspective. If a significant number of federal employees will be taking those days off for celebratory purposes then it doesn't make sense to open federal offices if there's not enough staff. Federal holidays only apply to federal employees and the District of Columbia. There's no requirement that your private employer, state employer or you recognize those holidays.
Your beliefs about your past and your mission would probably be considered to be personal religious beliefs. As Israel does not have a state religion this does not have any legal significance (except it may make a difference as to which religious court is considered to have jurisdiction over your family disputes). Your religious beliefs do not override the law, because otherwise anyone could make anything legal for themselves just by declaring a belief that it was moral. Hence you will be subject to all the same laws as everyone else. If you break the law and claim your beliefs as justification then you may be judged unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity and committed to a mental hospital.
There is a potentially infinite regress of questions regarding the constitutionality of restrictions imposed under these "emergency" circumstances. The basic legal principle is clearly established: laws restricting fundamental rights are subject to strict scrutiny. The specific details of a particular law and surrounding circumstances have yet to be discovered by the courts. If it is necessary to the purpose of saving lives that meetings of more than 10 people be prohibited, then the "compelling interest" test probably has been satisfied. That is basically a medical question, and the courts have a limited interest in scientific controversies, instead they are interested in whether people who make legal decisions do so rationally (is it reasonable to think that such limits would accomplish that compelling government end). Is it reasonable to think that restrictions lasting two months are necessary? The Black Death lasted at least 4 years. In the current circumstances (very limited hard knowledge this disease), it's hard to say what government actions could not be excused based on necessity. Summary execution is, at least in the current knowledge context, probably not going to pass strict scrutiny. As already explained in other thread on the topic, there is no "churches are above the law" constitutional provision. The appropriate question in the Florida case is not about the First Amendment, it is about the Due Process clauses – is the arrest lawful? We will, no doubt, see. On the face of it, he violated the law, so he can be arrested. I understand that there is a team poking holes in the order.
I am a notary public in Vermont and have had to deal with people who had name variations. Readers of Law StackExchange like to citations to reliable sources; I'm not going to do that, just describe my experience. Many states do indeed allow a person to adopt a new name through usage. Government agencies and large commercial agencies don't like that, and they can and do thwart the law by imposing their own administrative procedures. If you don't like their procedures, fine, give a lawyer a $20,000 retainer, have the lawyer sue, and wait three years. And after spending all that money, the court might find that although it isn't a crime for a person to change their name by usage, there is no law requiring the administrative agency to accept it. If you don't have tens of thousands of dollars to waste or years to wait, you have two choices. Get married, and use the marriage license as evidence of your name change. The format of marriage licenses is different in every state, so how well this works depends on the state. The other option is to get a court-ordered name change.