The Christian Legal Society (CLS), founded in 1961, is a nonprofit organization of lawyers, judges, law professors, and law students. The group's mission is to promote high ethical standards within the legal profession, support its members' commitment to Christian professional lives, and advance religious freedom for all U.S. citizens regardless of affiliation. CLS provides resources for research into law and theology; maintains a data bank of commentaries on legal issues; and provides a speakers' bureau, lawyer referral service, and mediation and arbitration services. It also publishes Christian Legal Society — Briefly, a quarterly newsletter for its members, and Christian Legal Society — Quarterly, a magazine that covers issues in line with the society's goals. CLS's legal advocacy arm, the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, promotes freedom of religion and challenges government interference with the free exercise of religion.
In 1993 CLS backed passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000bb, et seq., a response to the 1990 Supreme Court decision in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S. Ct. 1595, 108 L. Ed. 2d 876. Smith upheld a denial of unemployment benefits to Native Americans fired from their jobs for using peyote, a hallucinogenic drug, as part of a religious ceremony. CLS and numerous other groups representing a wide range of religious and political persuasions lobbied for RFRA, which requires the government to show a "compelling state interest," such as public health or safety, before interfering with religious practices.
CLS members successfully argued two important religious freedom cases before the Supreme Court in 1993. In Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, 509 U.S. 1, 113 S. Ct. 2462, 125 L. Ed. 2d 1, the Court held that the Establishment Clause did not prohibit a public school district from paying for a sign language interpreter for a deaf student who attended a Catholic high school. In Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 508 U.S. 384, 113 S. Ct. 2141, 124 L. Ed. 2d 352, the Court held that a school district's denial of a religious organization's application to use school facilities to show a film on Christian values in family relationships violated the church's First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
CLS and the Center for Law and Religious Freedom also filed briefs in two prominent cases in 1993 and 1994. In In re Young, 152 Bankr. 939 (D. Minn. 1993), a federal district court upheld a bankruptcy court ruling ordering the return of $13,450 in church donations to the creditors of Bruce Young and Nancy Young. The Youngs, members of Crystal Evangelical Free Church, in New Hope, Minnesota, had continued to tithe, contributing 10 percent of their income to their church, while their business was failing. The Bankruptcy Code requires cancellation of all donations made by an insolvent party within one year before filing for bankruptcy unless the party received "reasonably equivalent value" in exchange for the payments. The bankruptcy court found that the Youngs' donations did not satisfy the Code requirement. The case was appealed to district court. Lawyers from the Center for Law and Religious Freedom were unsuccessful in convincing the district court that the Bankruptcy Code violated the Youngs' religious freedom and that the Youngs had received equivalent value in the form of spiritual sustenance. The district court held that the Youngs had made their payments out of a moral rather than a legal obligation and that such payments did not satisfy the Code requirement. The court also held that the Code had only an incidental effect on religion and therefore did not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution.
In Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, ___U.S. ___, 115 S. Ct. 2510, 132 L. Ed. 2d 700 (1995), CLS supported the plaintiff, who sued the University of Virginia when it denied his request for financial support for publication of a Christian magazine. Although the university subsidized a wide range of publications from its Student Activities Fund (SAF), it denied Ronald W. Rosenberger's request on the grounds that his magazine violated SAF guidelines. Rosenberger argued that the guidelines, which prohibited the university from subsidizing a publication that "primarily promotes or manifests a particular belie[f] in or about a deity or an ultimate reality," violated his free speech rights. A brief filed by CLS maintained that the guidelines discriminated on the basis of religious belief and that a decision against the plaintiff would be a step toward "a relentlessly secular society" intolerant of religious persons and their views. The Supreme Court decided in favor of the plaintiff, but rested its holding on free speech grounds, stating that the SAF guidelines discriminated on the basis of viewpoint and violated the plaintiff's First Amendment rights.
CLS members are committed to the biblical injunction to "not leave justice and the love of God undone" (Luke 11:42, Matt. 23:23). They are dedicated to ending injustice, limiting or eliminating legal abortion, outlawing pornography, and bringing religious thought and precepts into public education. They are also committed to the evangelization of the legal profession, and plan to increase the society's membership by 10 to 12 percent each year.
