Word: acted
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
East Timorese need U.N. forces to act quickly to bring order
...wasn't. This week the Senate is expected to consider a bill called the Religious Liberty Protection Act, whose turgid name suggests that what the Pilgrims held dear is threatened in the very nation they founded. Supporters believe that government officials disrupt religious activities even today, despite the First Amendment's crystal-clear language: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
...cities pass zoning laws that keep churches out. They say children cannot wear the Star of David to school because of regulations meant to ban gang symbols. They say coroners perform autopsies on those whose faith holds that the corpse is sacred. In short, without the Religious Liberty Protection Act, says Marc Stern of the American Jewish Congress, "you send a message to the state [authorities] that they have carte blanche to interfere with religious practices...
...Eugene, Ore., Register-Guard learned about the recording and reported it. Oregonians were outraged. The Vatican sent a note of protest. Mockaitis sued, and won a $25,000 settlement after a federal court said the taping was wrong, in part because it violated the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The reasoning was that the D.A. had interfered with Mockaitis' religion by taping a sacrament. But in 1997 the Supreme Court struck down that law, saying it was too broad; Congress could not dictate terms of religious conduct to every community with a single law. So the new bill...
...basic problem: the law may not be needed. Mockaitis, for instance, did not need the religious-liberty law to win his case. The federal court that ruled in his favor said the taping violated both the Fourth Amendment, which bans unreasonable searches and seizures, and the federal Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on religion. (Hale, as it turned out, was convicted of the three murders, and the tapes, which contained only his professions of innocence, were not used in court...