| Sandy, First, I would need to interpret it to include things other than churches -- so rabbis, imams, and others can conduct services according to their own religious traditions for the most part. I don't think it extends to content like an imam saying "all good muslims will oppose the war in Iraq and refuse to go" or a Quaker or Buddhist advocating consciencious objection as the weekly diet of preaching or a Rabbi exhorting support for Israel and against the creation of a Palestinian state. All of these things happen in some mosques, synagogues, and meeting houses and could be claimed to be part of the "manner and form" of the religious tradition. But this highlights the distinction between "manner and form" on the one hand and substance and content on the other. So I could read the provision to be a formal one (singing, prayer, silence, whatever are allowed), but one where the government can censor what is said. That would be a permissible (though ill-advised, and I hope wrong) reading of the statute (leaving aside constitutional issues for a moment). Chaplains do not get carte blanche and this statute doesn't give it to them. As a matter of policy, and I would argue, constitutional protection of free exercise, I think chaplains have much broader latitude than the narrowest reading of the statute would permit, but I don't think this statute necessarily means as much as it might seem to. I have not researched the statute and am not an expert at all in military law or religion in the military, and so these comments are relatively off-the-cuff. Steve On Oct 11, 2005, at 11:43 AM, Sanford Levinson wrote:
-- Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8428 2900 Van Ness Street NW mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC 20008 http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar "Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." Martin Luther King, Jr. |
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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.
