The Steering Committee for the Third Conference of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies, to be held in the United States, 21-23 August 2013, has announced the conference theme — “Religion, Democracy, and Equality” — and has issued A Call for Papers, with submissions, due 1 May 2013, invited on the following sub-themes:

• Religious pluralism and treatment of religious minorities
• Religion and anti-discrimination norms
• Hate speech, hate crimes, and religious minorities
• Religion and gender issues

The central location for the conference will be Richmond, Virginia, near where the language was crafted that ultimately became the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Participants will spend one day of the conference will be spent in historic Charlottesville, home of the University of Virigina and Monticello, where much of the Jeffersonian heritage is in evidence, including the famous serpentine wall, sometimes identified as the true image of the famous “wall of separation”metaphor for the appropriate relationship of religion and state. A second day will take participants to Williamsburg, home of the College of William and Mary, and another major locus of historic church-state sites in early America.

While some speakers and panels will be commissioned for the conference, all academics interested in the study of law and religion are encouraged to submit proposals for individual papers and panels on any relevant topic. Anticipated  presentation time is approximately 15-20 minutes.  

“Young scholars” – in the first seven years of their teaching experience – are invited to submit proposals for presentations in a special first-day session.  

Proposals by all interested scholars should be submitted as an abstract of 300-500 words, together with a CV, by 1 May 2013, to [email protected].  

The past year has been a particularly significant one for the law and religion field. On 11 January 2012 the Supreme Court of the United States issued its judgment in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, without question one of the most significant religion decisions of the Court in decades. One year later, on 15 January 2013, the European Court of Human Rights delivered judgment in a similarly significant set of four consolidated cases in Eweida and Others v. The United Kingdom.

These US and European cases have brought law and religion questions to the forefront of public consciousness, and the decisions have spawned profound and ongoing debates. With these prospects in mind, the Steering Committee developed the conference themes.

Please consult Consortium website at www.iclars.org for ongoing developments.