Howard Friedman, Religion Clause
In El v. O’Brien, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85699 (ED NY, June 20, 2012), a New York federal district court rejected somewhat incoherent claims by a member of the Moorish Science Temple that Moorish Science documents, as well as an 1836 treaty between the United States and Morocco, be applied by the court in an action involving the validity of a mortgage. According to the court: “Apparently, Plaintiff ascribes to the ethnic/religious Moorish movement, which teaches certain views of United States history and its legal system, which are, to put it mildly, outside the mainstream, as they give special import to treaties between the United States and Morocco.