Kevin Hasson

Kevin J. "Seamus" Hasson, Esq. is Founder and President Emeritus of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit, public interest law firm that represents persons of all faiths.

Before founding the Becket Fund in 1994, Hasson was an attorney at Williams & Connolly in Washington D.C., where he focused on religious liberty litigation. From 1986 to 1987, he served in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department where he advised the White House and cabinet departments on church-state relations. In this position he worked under Samuel Alito.[1]

Hasson was involved in successfully arguing the right of The Catholic University of America to enact and enforce a Vatican ban on a professor from teaching theology. He also was a counsel for the Catholic Church in Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc. v. United States Catholic Conference where he defended the right of the Catholic Church to maintain its tax exempt status while teaching and advocating its moral position on abortion.[2]

He is a 1985 magna cum laude graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School, and also holds a master's degree in theology from Notre Dame. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Bible Literacy Project, publishers of the curriculum The Bible and Its Influence for public high school literature courses.

Hasson signed his name to a full-page advertisement in the December 5, 2008 edition of The New York Times which objected to violence and intimidation against religious institutions following the passage of Proposition 8. The ad stated that "violence and intimidation are always wrong, whether the victims are believers, gay people, or anyone else". A dozen other religious and human rights activists from several different faiths also signed the ad, noting that they "differ on important moral and legal questions", including Proposition 8.[3]

Awards

In 2011, the International Center for Law and Religion Studies and J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University presented Hasson the International Religious Liberty Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the promotion and preservation of religious freedom.[4]

Publications

  • The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America. San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2005. ISBN 978-1594030833

References

  1. ↑ article on Hasson and his views
  2. ↑ United States Catholic Conference v. Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc., 487 U.S. 72 (1988). Hasson not named counsel in reporter.
  3. ↑ NoMobVeto.org Archived 2008-12-08 at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ "Becket Fund Founder Seamus Hasson Receives Religious Liberty Award 2011". International Center for Law and Religion Studies. Retrieved 2017-08-14.
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