After staying locked in my apartment for the last 30 hours or so, reading tons of cases and law review articles, and praying like mad that God would be kind and provide a source of inspiration - I think I may have found my topic and unique legal argument!

This may be of little interest to most of you, but here's a synopsis:

The topic is about the provision in the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) applicable to prisoners. The RLUIPA basically protects prisoners' rights to exercise religion by establishing a high threshold for prison regulations to meet if they wish to abrogate those rights. However, for other First Amendment rights (e.g. free speech rights) the threshold is lower.

So does that mean there is a favoring of religion over irreligion? Or is it only an accommodation for prisoners to the free exercise of religion? Does the higher threshold for religious rights induce prisoners to become (or pretend to be) religious in order to secure those benefits? Does that constitute a government advancement of religion?

One federal court of appeal ruled that this provision is unconstitutional because it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (which prohibits Congress from making any law to establish religion). My Note will argue that it does not violate the EC because it is an accommodation of religion. Why? Well, I can't tell you because if word gets out, I might get preempted. :)

I think I shall sleep much better tonight.