Legal Activity

Past Activities

June 1961 – Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961)

AHA member Roy Torcasoprevailed in his lawsuit in the Supreme Court.  Torcaso was appointed to the office of Notary Public by the Governor of Maryland, but refused to declare his belief in God pursuant to the Maryland Constitution, which then required “a declaration of belief in the existence of God” in order for a person to hold “any office of profit or trust in this State.”  The Supreme Court unanimously found that Maryland’s requirement for a person holding public office to state a belief in God violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

March 1965 – U.S. v. Seeger,380 U.S. 163 (1965)

AHA filed an amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court in United States v. Seeger.  The Supreme Court ruled that the exemption from the military draft for conscientious objectors could not be reserved only for those professing conformity with the moral directives of a supreme being, but also for those whose views on war derived from a “sincere and meaningful belief which occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God of those” who had routinely gotten the exemption.

October 1967 – Noyd v. McNamara, 378 F. 2d 538 (10th Circuit 1967)

AHA filed an amicus curiae brief in support of petitioner Captain Dale E. Noyd, an “ally of the American Humanist Association.” Noyd v. McNamara, 267 F. Supp. 701 (D.C. Colo. 1967). Noyd sought declaratory relief, injunction and writs of habeas corpus and mandamus because of the refusal of defendants to recognize his status as a conscientious objector and to assign him accordingly, or in alternative, to accept his resignation. The District Court held that where the Air Force officer had twice made applications for separation or for assignment recognizing his conscientious objector views, and both applications had been refused, the officer would be required to exhaust remedies within military establishment and court was without jurisdiction to hear officer’s claim in action designed to spare officer from military justice.  The Court of Appeals held that district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the action in view of officer’s failure to exhaust military process beyond administrative remedies under air force regulations.

May 1981 – McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255 (ED Ark. 1982)

AHA partnered with the National Coalition for Public Education and Religious Liberty, as part of their involvement challenging Arkansas’s Creationism Act under the Establishment Clause. The District Court held that the statute violated the Establishment Clause because it was simply and purely an effort to introduce a Biblical version of creation into the public school curriculum and thus its specific purpose was to advance religion.  The court further found that the fact that creation science was inspired by Book of Genesis and that statutory definition of creation science was consistent with literal interpretation of Genesis, there was no doubt that primary effect of the statute was advancement of particular religious beliefs.

August 1983-1989 – Jones v. State, 249 Ga. 605 (1982); Jones v. Kemp, 706 F. Supp. 1534 (N.D.Ga.,1989)

AHA Humanist Advocate acted as counsel for Brandon Jones and two other inmates, demanding that a death row inmate be allowed to receive counseling from a Humanist counselor.  The court ruled that inmates could not see the Humanist Celebrant for counseling on death row, and that petitioner was not deprived of effective assistance of counsel.

June 1985 – Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985)

A parent of three public school children and active AHA member, Ishmael Jaffree, filed a complaint against various school officials and Alabama state officials challenging the constitutionality of an Alabama school prayer and meditation statute.  The Supreme Court held that the Alabama statute authorizing a daily period of silence in public schools for meditation or voluntary prayer was an endorsement of religion lacking any clearly secular purpose, and thus violated the Establishment Clause.

March 1986 – Americans United for Separation of Church & State v. Reagan
786 F. 2d 194 (3rd Cir. 1986)

The AHA served as a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the creation of an ambassador post to the Vatican.  The court held that the plaintiffs did not have sufficient protectable interests as taxpayers, as citizens, or as victims of allegedly adverse stigmatization to challenge the diplomatic actions they complained of and that the President’s resolution of diplomatic relations questions was a judicially unreviewable political decision.

July 1986 – Margaret S. v. Edwards, 794 F. 2d 994 (5th Circuit 1986)

The AHA joined an amicus brief in objection to a Louisiana statute imposing restrictions on abortions, which were criminally punishable on the grounds that they were considered sinful by particular religious groups.  The Fifth Circuit held that: (1) a provision which required the physician, within 24 hours of performing abortion, to “personally” inform patient of her right to have fetus cremated, buried, or disposed of as waste tissue violated patient’s constitutional rights, and (2) criminal provision, prohibiting any party from “experimenting” on unborn child or child born as result of abortion, was unconstitutionally vague.

June 1987 – Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987)

The AHA contributed to an amicus brief filed by 72 Nobel Laureates in a challenge to the teaching of religion as science in Louisiana’s “Creationism Act.”  The Supreme Court held the Act was facially invalid as violative of the Establishment Clause because it served no identified secular purpose, and its primary purpose was to promote a particular religious belief.

August 1987 – Smith v. Board of School Com’rs of Mobile County, 827 F.2d 684 (11th Cir. 1987)

Gordon Gamm, on behalf of the AHA, submitted an amicus curiae brief in a case challenging a ban on “Humanist” schoolbooks.  The court held that the use of the challenged home economics textbooks in the public school system did not advance secular humanism or inhibit theistic religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.  The court further held that even assuming secular humanism was a religion, that the use of the textbooks had an appropriate secular effect, without precluding possibility that religion was source of its moral values. The court explained that while the “textbooks contain ideas that are consistent with secular humanism,” the effect was permissible because they instilled “such values as independent thought, tolerance of diverse views, self-respect, maturity, self-reliance and logical decision-making.”

August 1987 – Mozert v. Hawkins County Bd. of Educ., 827 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir. 1987)

The AHA joined an amicus brief in opposition to suit brought by school children and their parents seeking injunctive relief under the Free Exercise Clause.  The parents objected to the fact that all Hawkins County public school children were taught to read from Holt Basic Readings, alleging that the books taught, among other things: “witchcraft,” concepts of “disobedience to parents,” that one “does not need to believe in God in a specific way but that any type of faith in the supernatural is an acceptable method of salvation,” the implication that “Jesus was illiterate,” that man “and apes evolved from a common ancestor,” and “various humanistic values.” The court held that the requirement that public school students study a basic reader series chosen by school authorities did not create an unconstitutional burden under Free Exercise Clause.

June 1988 – Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589 (1988)

The AHA joined the amicus brief of the National Coalition for Public Education and Religious Liberty, stating that Adolescent Family Life Act “impermissibly directs that public funds be awarded to religious organizations to promote government policies that these grantees teach as articles of religious faith. Such direct promotion of religious dogma by government - paying religious entities to propagate religious doctrine - violates the Establishment Clause.”  The Supreme Court of the United States in a 5-4 decision upheld the Act.

March 1989 – Torcaso v. Virginia, Cert denied, 493 U.S. 935 L.Ed.2d 317 (U.S. Va. Oct 30, 1989)

The plaintiff, an active AHA Humanist Counselor and member, was denied an application to perform weddings because Virginia only allowed ordained ministers to perform marriage services, thus blocking Torcaso and other nonbelievers from doing so.  Unlike his previous suit, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case in 1989.

April 1990 – In re A.C., 573 A.2d 1235 (D.C.1990)

The AHA joined an amicus brief with other progressive groups in a case involving a woman who was forced to have a caesarian operation against her consent.  The court held that where a patient, pregnant with a viable fetus, is near death, the question of what is to be done is to be decided by the patient, unless the patient is incompetent or otherwise unable to give informed consent to proposed course of medical treatment, in which case her decision must be ascertained through procedure known as substituted judgment.

March 1991 – UAW v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 499 U.S. 187 (1991)

The AHA joined an amicus brief with the ACLU.  The Supreme Court held that an employer’s policy barring all women, except those whose infertility was medically documented, from jobs involving actual or potential lead exposure exceeding the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s standard was facially discriminatory because it required only female employees to produce proof that they were not capable of reproducing, despite evidence of the debilitating effect of lead exposure on the male reproductive system.   Moreover, the Court found that under the occupational qualification exception in Title VII (providing that employers may discriminate on the basis of “religion, sex, or national origin in those certain instances where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise”) prohibits an employer from discriminating against a woman because of her capacity to become pregnant unless her reproductive potential prevents her from performing the duties of her job.
 
May 1991 – Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991)

The AHA joined in an amicus brief in this Supreme Court case challenging Title X of the Public Health Service Act and the doctors who supervised Title X funds.  The challenged regulations of the Department of Health and Human Services prohibited Title X projects from engaging in abortion counseling, referral, and activities advocating abortion as a method of family planning. The plaintiffs also challenged provisions of those regulations requiring such projects to maintain an objective integrity and independence from prohibited abortion activities by the use of separate facilities, personnel, and accounting records.  The Supreme Court upheld the regulations and held that the regulations did not violate the First Amendment free speech rights of Title X fund recipients, their staffs, or their patients by impermissibly imposing viewpoint-discriminatory conditions on government subsidies. 

AHA’s position in the brief states that “its members support reproductive choice and believe that the HHS regulations forbidding the provision of information about abortion in Title X-funded programs can only have a negative effect on women's health and the integrity of counselors.” Click here: 1990 WL 10012647 for a copy of the Brief of Amici Curiae.

June 2002 – Paulson v. City of San Diego, 294 F.3d 1124 (9th Cir. 2002)

Active AHA leader and longtime member, Paulson, filed suit demanding a cross be removed from pubic grounds.  The court held that the sale of public land on which a 43-foot-high Latin cross stood was structured in a manner that violated California constitutional provision banning any official involvement which had the direct, immediate, and substantial effect of promoting religious purposes.

June 2003 – Freethought Soc. of Greater Philadelphia v. Chester County, 334 F.3d 247 (3rd Cir. 2003)

The AHA filed an amicus brief in an effort to remove Ten Commandments plaque from the Chester County Courthouse façade. The Court of Appeals held that a reasonable observer, aware of history of 82-year-old plaque, would not have viewed the county’s refusal to remove plaque as an endorsement of religion and concluded that the façade did not violate the Establishment Clause.

Click here: 2002 WL 32817115 (Appellate Brief) Brief of Americans for Religious Liberty, The American Humanist Association, The American Ethical Union, The Philadelphia Ethical Society, The Unitarian Universalist Association, The Society for Humanistic Judaism, Amici Curiae, Urging Affirmance of the District Court (Dec. 13, 2002)

September 2002 – Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc. 537 U.S. 393 (2003)

AHA was one of the first organizations to join an amicus curiae brief in this challenge brought by women’s rights organization and abortion clinics against a coalition of antiabortion groups, alleging that defendants were members of nationwide conspiracy to shut down abortion clinics through a pattern of racketeering activity in violation of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

Other signatories of this brief include: The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Disciples for Choice, Americans for Religious Liberty, The National Council of Jewish Women, Inc., United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries, Lutheran Women’s Caucus, The Women's Rabbinic Network of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, The Unitarian Universalist Association

AHA states in the brief that: “AHA affirms the right to privacy and the right of every woman to freedom of conscience and freedom of choice in dealing with problem pregnancies.”

The Supreme Court held that by interfering with, disrupting, and in some instances “shutting down” clinics that performed abortions, individual and corporate organizers of antiabortion protest network did not “obtain” or attempt to obtain property from women’s rights organization or abortion clinics, and so did not commit “extortion” under the Hobbs Act, as required for organization and clinics to establish RICO predicate offense.