A Sound of Sheer Silence

Lots of people have said lots of better and smarter things about #metoo, particularly in light of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings ( most recent update here , though this story is evolving at warp speed), than I can.  I have never been assaulted, so I cannot speak to the experience.  I have, however, noticed a couple of things out there in the discussion that I think are worth commenting on. 1. "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" and "Innocent Until Proven Guilty."   Lawyers, and people who like to sound like lawyers, often try to gaslight people who are concerned about an accusation against someone by saying things like "people are innocent until proven guilty!" and "where is your proof beyond a reasonable doubt?"  The idea here, of course, is that you are a bad person for "immediately assuming" that a person is guilty of whatever they are accused of, whereas the speaker is a reasoned and broad-minded and fair person.  This is nonse...

As  I have mentioned before, when I am not writing this blog, I work as a lawyer.  I try to keep those two worlds separate, but every once in a while something crops up that bridges the gap that is interesting and worth talking about.  One such issue is the recent decision in State of Washington v. Arlene's Flowers , a copy of which you can find here from the Washington Supreme Court .  What I would like to do in this piece is to talk about the legal issues at stake here, because I think that the way this is being talked about misses a big part of what the key issues at stake are in this case, and similar cases that are surely coming down the pike. Arlene's Flowers is a floral shop owned by Baronelle Stutzman.  Ms. Stutzman refused to sell flowers to Robert Ingersoll for his wedding, because Mr. Ingersoll was intending to (and in fact did) marry a man, Curt Freed.  Ms. Stutzman and Arlene's Flowers were sued by both Mr. Ingersoll and the State of Washingt...

I talked in the last post about the motivations behind the apocalyptic stance of Ross Douthat's Sunday column .  However, whatever his motivations, his core position--that "allowing" (more on that in a bit) divorced and remarried couples to receive Communion will be the end of everything--is a crazy position.  And it is a crazy position for a couple of reasons, but the most basic reason is this:  Douthat is concerned about Pope Francis softening a disciplinary rule of the Catholic Church that is not only not being enforced, but is one that cannot be enforced, given the culture and socialization of the U.S. Catholic Church in 2016. Let's break that down.  First, despite yeoman's efforts to make all of this into some central doctrinal and theological Rubicon, what we are really talking about here is a disciplinary rule--under what circumstances can a Catholic come up and receive Communion.  Canon law in the Catholic Church (Canon 988, p.1) says "[t]he fait...

Prior to the coming of the English, Ireland was governed by a set of traditional laws, passed down orally through a class of judges/lawyers, called the "Brehon Code" or "Brehon Law."  Brehon law lasted for a long time in Ireland--in the western part of the Ireland, it was still the operative rule of governance into the Elizabethan period, as can be seen in the tale of the Pirate Queen of Ireland, Grainne Mhaol ("Grace O'Malley") .  In fact, one of the interesting things one sees from the story of Grainne is that Brehon Law governed marriage and family relationships in medieval Ireland, not the rules of the Catholic Church. And the Brehon laws related to marriage were wholly incompatible with the Catholic theology of marriage as currently presented.  Rather than being a singular, life-long commitment of personal and sexual fidelity, marriage under the Brehon laws was a series (as many as ten) of pre-determined relationships that regulated the status ...

I moved to Columbus, Ohio in 2011 to take a one-year position as a law clerk for a judge on the United States Court of Appeals.  The Court of Appeals is the level below the Supreme Court, and so we would hear appeals from every sort of case that makes its way through the federal trial courts.  We would also review what are called petitions for habeas corpus--supplementary appeals of criminal convictions (usually either life sentences or capital sentences) that occurred in state court.  When I tell people about the cases we saw during my time associated with the court, many people assume that these criminal cases were the most interesting and engaging.  But they were not, at least I didn't think so.  More than anything else, those habeas cases were frustrating. The source of this frustration came in large part from a law called, and I am not making this up, "The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996," commonly called "AEDPA."  AEDPA was pa...

Beyond "BunnyGate," one of the issues that has gotten the Catholic blogosphere all up in arms is the US Supreme Court's failure to accept a request from the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge to review a decision of the Louisiana Supreme Court (known in legal parlance as a "petition for certiorari").  The LA Supreme Court decision can be found here .  I've got to put my lawyer hat on for this one--the claims made by the Diocese of Baton Rouge, and the Catholic bloggers, are entirely disingenuous, and the Louisiana Supreme Court absolutely got this one right. Like any case, the holding has to be understood in the context of its facts.  A 14 year old girl alleges that she was molested by a George Charlet, both parishoners of Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in the Diocese of Baton Rouge.  The girl goes to her priest and, in confession, says that Mr. Charlet is molesting her.  According to the 14 year old: [T]he priest allegedly responded she simpl...

The latest round of litigation over same sex marriage occurred this week in North Carolina, where clergy and parishoners of the United Church of Christ challenged Amendment One to the NC Constitution, passed in 2011.  One element of the suit challenged the highlight-grabbing portion of Amendment One, which placed a ban on same-sex marriages into the NC Constitution.  I don't want to be dismissive of this element of the case, as it is clearly of enormous importance to the plaintiffs, but that is the less-interesting part of the case.  We have seen many similar challenges to state constitutional amendments regarding same-sex marriage, and the arguments are well established at this point. The part of the case that caught my eye was the religious freedom challenge to Amendment One made by the UCC ministers.  Under Amendment One, it would be a crime for a UCC minister to perform a marriage ceremony involving a same sex couple.  Since the UCC Church authorizes same...

A statement came out today from the top guy in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, basically saying that the Church was not going to change anything regarding divorced and remarried people.  Or, at the very least, it is not going to change anything doctrinally. Some took this as an opportunity to rend their garments and declare that Francis is all talk and that this new openness is an illusion.  In turn, the usual suspects took it as an opportunity to throw rotten tomatoes at those who are rending their garments.  And so, the circle of life continues. I don't think it means much of anything.  First, there was a bit of the infamous "vote of confidence" about the article.  Every time you hear that a sports coach has the "full confidence" of the owner or athletic director, or a CEO has the "full confidence" of the Board of Directors, you can count down the days until that coach or CEO is canned.  There is no policy change until there is a ...

Very interesting case out of Texas, via dotCommonweal blog . All of the exorcisms you see on TV and in movies are Catholic exorcisms, because Catholic exorcisms make for good theatre--the Old Priest, the Young Priest, Latin, Holy Water, etc.  But most of the exorcisms (or, for the cynical, purported exorcisms) that occur in the U.S. are done by Pentecostal churches.    The video below is of a Pentecostal exorcism in a Spanish-speaking church (not sure the location) The lawyer in me sees massive opportunities for liability in that video.  I haven't read the Texas case--I hope to do so soon and update.