"Not Enough."

Morocco has a law that, to American ears, sounds quite jarring. In order to adopt a Moroccan baby, would-be parents have to convert to Islam. That seems kinda strange, but it appears that Moroccan authorities are satisfied with some sort of pro forma conversion. Whatever, man. I couldn't do it (at least, I think I couldn't do it - I try not to be categorical about choices with which I've never been faced), but if you can, more power to you.

Here's the deal. This couple in Britain had adopted a boy from a Moroccan orphanage, and wanted to get him a little brother from the same orphanage. The orphanage seemed okay with it, but local social services demanded that the parents prove they were "Muslim enough."

(h/t to Eugene Volokh - I know, I can't believe it either. )

Anyway, I have three points to make here. Two are about the issue itself, and the other's about Volokh's commentary.

First, I think Volokh is right that in the United States this action would be unconstitutional. First, the First Amendment pretty clearly prohibits the government from using information about your religion to determine whether you receive some government benefit - even if you're not entitled to the benefit, the withholding of it BECAUSE of your exercise of a First Amendment right is clearly unconstitutional. Pickering v. Board of Educ.. I am aware that the Census Bureau collects religious information, but that information is not used to determine the bestowal of any government benefit. Second, using American government actors to enforce Moroccan law would be unconstitutional unless there were some treaty between the United States and Morocco for that purpose. It is almost certain that such a treaty, should it exist, would have reservations that would insulate American workers from having to take action inconsistent with the Constitution.

Second, as a matter of policy, I'm not convinced that this is a problem. Let's consider, at essence, what the Surrey bureaucrats are complaining of. They could be suggesting that, to the extent that the adoptive parents' conversion to Islam was a sham at the time of the adoption, that they have actually perpetrated a fraud. Obtaining an adoption under fraudulent circumstances is certainly a crime, and although Morocco may be uninterested in prosecuting it, perhaps the United Kingdom would be.

I am not, in fact, suggesting that the adoption WAS fraudulent. Volokh raises the idea that the adoptive parents may have been initially sincere and changed their mind, or practicing a "highly reform" version of Islam. Both of those are legitimate arguments, and both would counsel in favor of finding that the adoption should go forward.

Finally, as noted, Volokh describes a liberal Islam as "highly reform." "Reform," of course, comes from "Reform Judaism," my own method of practice. I had a bizarre feeling seeing that word used to describe another religion. It's an interesting shorthand to help invoke a thought that describing the practice as "liberal" probably would not successfully invoke. But, it also implies that there is a movement of liberal Islam to match the Reform Judaism movement. Certainly, Volokh would deny such an implication, but it is there. And although I don't know much about Islam in Britain, I'm not convinced that such a movement exists. The truth is, and Volokh knows this, that terms matter. Terms of art are important. You have to use them correctly. "Reform" religion is a movement, with a group of common values and common goals - even if those values are as loose as "do what you like." Which is not Reform Judaism, incidentally. That movement is likely built around modernizing a faith that no longer seems relevant to its adherents' lives, but it is still a movement. Absent some evidence of cohesion in liberal Islam, I'm disinclined to call it "reform."

I know, it's just a nitpick. But Eugene Volokh is so rarely this careless in his language, I had to call him out.