Finding My Religion
Last year, in article entitled “Losing My Religion,” LASIS reported on four British employees who brought religious discrimination claims against their employers and lost all the way up through their country’s highest court. Their last recourse was the European Court of Human Rights that decided the four cases this January. Was it a happy ending for these lethargic litigants? As it turns out, the only Cinderella story here is that of Nadia Eweida, who wanted to wear a cross on a chain at her airline job.
This British Airways check-in clerk was awarded €32,000 which the government will have to pay (because that’s who she sued). In its judgment, the court stated that while companies have a right to project their desired image through employee uniforms, this right cannot trump an employee’s right to wear religious icons – to a degree. The decision is not entirely clear, and lawyers in Britain are battling over what it means for everyone else going forward. Meanwhile, the court has received twitter praise from Prime Minister David Cameron who tweeted that “ppl shouldn’t suffer discrimination due to religious beliefs.”
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Tags British Airways, England, European Court of Human Rights, religious discrimination, religious freedom, right to wear religious icons |
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Date 04/25/2013 |
The Realities of Same-Sex Divorce
On March 26 and 27, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in United States v. Windsor — the case which addresses the constitutionality of Defense of Marriage Act. The question is whether Section 3 of the Act, which defines the term “marriage” as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife,” deprives same–sex couples who are lawfully married under the laws of their states (such as New York) of equal protection, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.
In 2007, Edith Windsor, a New Yorker, married her same–sex partner of over 40 years, Thea Spyer, in Canada. Dr. Spyer died two years after the marriage and left her entire estate to her wife — along with a hefty federal estate tax bill of $363,000 — a tax that Ms. Windsor would have avoided had she been married to a man.
And then there are problems for gay people on the other end of the marriage spectrum. New York Magazine recently published an article that addresses same-sex couples who are unprepared for the legalities involved in divorce.
LASIS further develops the consequences of both the marriage and divorce issues that lie ahead for same sex–couples.
Consider this: Boy from Alabama meets Boy from Florida (two states whose constitutions ban same–sex marriage) while vacationing in the Big Apple. The two fall madly in love and decide to get married right then and there. Is this even possible in light of the fact that both of them live out–of–state and are merely passing through New York? Yes! While New York may have been the sixth state to approve gay marriage, it was the first not to include any residency requirements for marriage. This means that any same–sex couple may travel to New York State and enter into a legally binding marriage. But this boy meets boy story isn’t over just quite yet…
After the vacation is over, boy and boy head back to their respective states, pack up all of their belongings and head for Texas (another state whose constitution bans same–sex marriage) to start their new life together. All is well during the honeymoon phase, but before long the boys realize that they rushed into their marriage, made a terrible mistake, and all things being equal, want a divorce. They rush down to the courthouse only to find that the doors are closed… Texas doesn’t recognize same–sex marriages and will not grant them a divorce.
The couple then hurries to the airport and hops on the next flight to New York.
Surely the state that married them will divorce them, right?
Wrong.
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Tags DOMA, New York Domestic Relations Law, no-fault divorce, Same Sex Marriage, same-sex divorce, till death do us part |
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Date 04/23/2013 |
You Don’t Own E-nything
With news breaking last month that Amazon has a patent to resell e-books, consumers smiled and authors worriedly reviewed the contents of their savings accounts. Earlier this month, attorney and bestselling author Scott Turow wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times stating that the practice of reselling such an item will most likely be “ruled illegal.”
I share his optimism. But only because our laws are so far behind Europe’s.
If a realm existed more poorly regulated and filled with bad law than the internet, I’d love to see it. We have reactionary legislation from people who don’t know how to turn on their computer, case law decided by judges perplexed by futuristic terms like “modem,” and an army of users content to make up their own interpretations of the law and let it spread like wildfire. This misinterpretation of the law is then repeated on various online forums until it is recited with more bravado than Gaston, mocking any who dare to disagree, even when the dissenters are correct. Well, get on your chuckle boots, internet, because you’re about to be educated.
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Tags Amazon, copyright, e-books, First Sale Doctrine, patent, publishers, resale, Steam, video games |
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Date 04/22/2013 |
Can School Tell Tot Where to Sit on Pot?
Born with male organs, Coy Mathis began identifying as a girl at the tender age of 18 months.
Today she is six years old, and while attending Eagleside Elementary School in Colorado, was using the girls’ restroom for over a year; the Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8 policy states that students “shall have access to the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity consistently asserted at school.”
Then, in December, the district sent a letter to the Mathis family, stating that, “as Coy grows older and his male genitals develop along with the rest of his body, at least some parents and students are likely to become uncomfortable with his continued use of the girls’ restroom.”
The district wants Coy to use the boys’ restroom, or barring that, a gender-neutral restroom (that it concedes is not near the others).
The Mathis family is suing. LASIS investigates.
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Tags bathroom, civil rights lawsuit, Colorado, Coy Mathis, Doe v. Clenchy, transgender child, transgender student rights |
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Date 04/18/2013 |
A Journalist’s Right to Remain Silent
Journalists connect us to places, times, and events that we would otherwise know nothing about. They tell us what to talk about. What to think about. Sometimes, they take us places we wouldn’t travel to were it not for them. Christopher Hitchens let us experience waterboarding. Julius Chambers let us struggle with him at the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum. Sometimes, they even change the course of history. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered one of the biggest political scandals in American history. Their work directly led to the resignation of a president.
But this incredible power comes with risks. Journalists may only be able to break a story by relying on sources who speak on the condition of anonymity. And though there are laws that help protect journalists and their sources, called shield laws, they’re not foolproof. In 2006, Josh Wolf, a freelance journalist, spent 226 days in jail for refusing to hand over video footage that law enforcement authorities said depicted protestors damaging a police car. Judith Miller, formerly of The New York Times, spent 85 days in jail after failing to reveal her source in leaking the identity of a CIA agent in 2005.
And now, Jana Winter is staring down jail time in the name of protecting her sources. Fox News sent Ms. Winter to Aurora, Colorado to cover James Holmes and the July, 2012 movie theater shooting. Later that month she broke an exclusive story about a notebook that Mr. Holmes had sent to a University of Colorado psychiatrist, which, contained “details about how he was going to kill people.”
She learned this from a source within law enforcement to whom she guaranteed anonymity.
If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have had the story. We wouldn’t have had the story.
Mr. Holmes’ attorneys now claim that the killer’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial, as well as a court ordered gag order, were violated by Ms. Winter’s reporting. They’re hoping that Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour, Jr. will offer Ms. Winter two choices: reveal your sources — or go to jail.
While Judge Samour has delayed the decision pending a determination of whether the notebook will be admissible as evidence in Mr. Holmes’ trial, there may come a day when Ms. Winter will be asked by a court to reveal the identity of her sources. Should she have to? No. But is the law on her side? LASIS investigates.
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Tags 6th Amendment, Aurora shootings, first amendment, Fox News, freedom of the press, James Holmes, Jana Winter, shield law |
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Date 04/17/2013 |