{"id":27461,"date":"2011-07-25T21:39:01","date_gmt":"2011-07-25T21:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/louisiana_monks_win_right_to_build_sell_caskets\/"},"modified":"2011-07-25T21:39:01","modified_gmt":"2011-07-25T21:39:01","slug":"louisiana_monks_win_right_to_build_sell_caskets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=27461","title":{"rendered":"(RNS) Louisiana Monks Win Right to Build, Sell Caskets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A federal judge on Thursday (July 21) said a state law that limits the sale of caskets to licensed funeral directors and establishments is unconstitutional.<br \/>\nThe ruling came in a case brought by the monks at St. Joseph Abbey in Covington, La., who alleged the law amounted to unconstitutional economic protectionism for the funeral industry.<\/p>\n<p>The abbey opened a woodshop in 2007 to sell handcrafted cypress caskets for $1,500 to $2,000, which is cheaper than some caskets from a typical funeral home. The abbey hoped the sales would finance medical and educational needs for more than 30 monks. The state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors issued a cease-and-desist letter before the abbey could sell a single casket. The abbey defied those demands and began selling the caskets anyway.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ethicsdaily.com\/la-monks-win-right-to-build-sell-caskets-cms-18256\">Read it all<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal judge on Thursday (July 21) said a state law that limits the sale of caskets to licensed funeral directors and establishments is unconstitutional. The ruling came in a case brought by the monks at St. Joseph Abbey in<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=27461\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,42,114,154,108,364],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-religion-news-commentary","category-law-legal-issues","category-other-churches","category-religion-culture","category-roman-catholic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}