Legal Spirits

Poetica Coffee in Brooklyn In this Legal Spirits Short Take, Mattone Center Director Mark Movsesian discusses the recent controversy involving Congressman Dan Goldman and a Brooklyn coffee shop that reportedly said it would have refused him service because of his support for Israel. Was this illegal discrimination based on religion, or a refusal of service based on politics? What does this episode...

The Defense Department recently created a controversy by revising its list of religious affiliation codes for service members and failing to designate the LDS Church as Christian. After objections, DOD removed the Christian designation from the list altogether. In this Legal Spirits Short Take, Center Director Mark Movsesian explains how the episode reveals a deeper problem of liberalism in a reli...

In this episode of Legal Spirits , I speak with Andrea Pin about his new book, Dignity in Judgment , and the role of human dignity in contemporary constitutional law. We explore competing understandings of dignity—a secular, autonomy-based view and a more communal conception influenced by religious traditions—and consider how courts choose between them. Along the way, we discuss why the secular vi...

Therapist Kaley Chiles at the Supreme Court ( CSPAN ) In this short take, Mark Movsesian looks at the Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision this week in Chiles v. Salazar , involving a Christian therapist who challenged Colorado’s ban on so-called conversion therapy for minors. Formally, Chiles is not a free exercise case. But religion is clearly in the background—a reminder that law-and-religion controver...

Louisiana Authorities Announce the New 10 Commandments Policy ( CNN ) A couple of weeks ago, the en banc 5th Circuit vacated on ripeness grounds a lower court ruling that Louisiana’s law requiring placement of the 10 Commandments in public school classrooms violates the Establishment Clause. In this short take, Mattone Center Director Mark Movsesian explains what the case is all about, and t...

Nearly eighty years after Japan adopted constitutional provisions separating religion and the state, Japanese courts continue to grapple with a question familiar to American lawyers: how to enforce separation without severing law from history, tradition, and social practice. In this episode of Legal Spirits , Mark Movsesian speaks with Professor Eiichiro Takahata of Nihon University about the Japa...

Cities Church ( MPR News ) In this episode—the first in a new series of Legal Spirits law-and-religion short takes—Mattone Center Director Mark Movsesian offers an initial assessment of the recent anti-ICE protest at Cities Church in Minnesota. He explains what is known so far, the legal issues the episode raises, and why those issues matter beyond this particular controversy. Whatever the merits...

In this episode, Mattone Center Director Mark Movsesian speaks with Judge Ioannis Ktistakis of the European Court of Human Rights about his career as an advocate, scholar, and international judge, and about emerging religious-freedom challenges facing Europe. They explore the role of the European Court—which Judge Ktistakis describes as “the Constitutional Court of Europe”—and examine how it suppo...

Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists—better known for its reference to a “wall of separation” between church and state—was little remembered until Chief Justice Morrison Waite revived it in Reynolds v. United States (1879). With the help of historian George Bancroft, Waite transformed Jefferson’s passing metaphor into a constitutional principle, despite Jefferson’s limited role i...

Map: The Conversation In Episode 70 of  Legal Spirits , Center Director Mark Movsesian speaks with Dan Harre, Deputy Director of  Save Armenia , about a significant—and controversial—draft agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Brokered last month at the White House, the terms reflect a major realignment in the region: Armenia relinquishes any claim to Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan backs off ear...