News from around the world. Curated by Mark McDowell. Posts do not constitute agreement or endorsement.
I’m following up on my post on Monday highlighting Yeshiva University’s emergency application to the Supreme Court seeking relief from an injunction that would require it to approve an undergraduate LGBTQ club. The Supreme Court has invited the parties opposing Yeshiva’s application to file their response by the end of…
Illinois court blocks petition to remove Amendment 1 from Nov. 8 ballot An Illinois appellate court cleared the way for Amendment 1 to stay on the Nov. 8 ballot. Regardless of whether the change to the state constitution might violate the U.S. Constitution, the process for putting it on the…
United States Supreme Court building in Washington DC, 2009 Yeshiva University in New York City asked the Supreme Court on Monday in an emergency filing to block a court order forcing the Orthodox Jewish university to officially recognize an LGBTQ club on campus. Renowned attorney Nathan Lewin , who has…
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The top court for nine eastern Caribbean nations and territories has struck down a colonial-era law against homosexual conduct in St. Kitts and Nevis, ruling that sexual orientation is covered by the right to privacy. LGBTQ activists celebrated the ruling issued Tuesday by the…
The school says that officially recognizing the club goes against its religious beliefs and violates its First Amendment rights. WASHINGTON (CN) — An Orthodox Jewish university asked the Supreme Court on Monday to block a ruling that would force it to officially recognize an LGBTQ club on campus. Yeshiva University…
Notre Dame Law School via AP In the image from video provided by Notre Dame Law School, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Altio speaks at the Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Summit in Rome, on July 21, 2022. Conservative defenders of religious liberty are pushing a new version of an…
The South Florida activist had raised more than $14,000 as of Thursday evening to distribute “In God We Trust” signs to public schools across Texas. The catch? The phrase is in Arabic. The Arabic text is meant to invoke Islam and some Christians’ discomfort with that faith, Stevens said. He’s…
A trio of rulings, far from ‘regressive decision-making,’ promoted equality by liberating the First Amendment’s religious liberty protections. The Supreme Court’s latest momentous term delivered major victories for religious freedom. The ability to freely exercise one’s religious beliefs is one of the most essential rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution…
A former postal worker who has sued the U.S. Postal Service for forcing him to work on Sundays despite his religious beliefs has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. First Liberty Institute, Baker Botts LLP, the Church State Council, and the Independence Law Center filed the appeal Tuesday on behalf…
Gerald Groff appears in an image provided to Law&Crime by his lawyers. A postal worker who asked for a religious accommodation to have every Sunday off is now asking the Supreme Court to review his case. Former postal worker Gerald E. Groff is an Evangelical Christian and Sunday Sabbath observer.…
Students work at their desks at Blanco Vista Elementary School in San Marcos on Aug. 23, 2021. A new law requiring Texas schools to display donated “In God We Trust” posters is the latest move by Republican lawmakers to bring Christianity into taxpayer-funded institutions. Under the law, Senate Bill 797,…
The U.S. Supreme Court must dismiss a manufactured case of a Colorado business so that religious discrimination is thwarted, the Freedom From Religion Foundation insists in an amicus brief . The state/church watchdog has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a free speech case involving a Colorado business owner who says…
This is the logo of Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, which is based in Baltimore. A federal judge in Maryland ruled Aug. 3 the agency must offer health care coverage to spouses of gay employees as long as the employees’ jobs are nonreligious in…
court cases to watch Surveying the news over the past week, I see action in a trio of cases working through our federal court system that are worth keeping an eye on from a religious liberty perspective. All three ask courts to apply and interpret relatively recent Supreme Court decisions.…
MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) today joined a coalition in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of Colorado’s public accommodations law, arguing that a business owner’s religious beliefs do not give a business open to the public the right to…
A gavel and block are seen in this illustration photo. (CNS photo/Andrew Kelly, Reuters) BALTIMORE (CNS) — A U.S. District Court judge in Maryland has ruled that Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, must offer health care coverage to the spouses of gay employees as…
Students work at their desks at Blanco Vista Elementary School in San Marcos on Aug. 23, 2021. The law passed last year says schools must display the national motto in a “conspicuous place” but only if the poster is “donated” or “purchased by private donations.” A new law requiring Texas…
MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) today joined a coalition in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of Colorado’s public accommodations law, arguing that a business owner’s religious beliefs do not give a business open to the public the right to…
Case Involves Colorado Wedding Website Designer’s Intent to Refuse to Create Wedding Websites for LGBTQ+ Couples; States Defend Constitutionality of Public Accommodations Law MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) today joined a coalition in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of…
In this week’s brief, attorneys for the Department of Education wrote that the association “completely disregarded core First Amendment principles when it refused to allow Cambridge Christian School to pray over the loudspeaker at its 2015 championship game solely because of the religious message of the prayer, even though secular,…
A new law requiring Texas schools to display donated "In God We Trust" posters is the latest move by Republican lawmakers to bring Christianity into taxpayer-funded institutions. Under the law, Senate Bill 797 , which passed during last year’s legislative session, schools are required to display the posters if they…
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization the United States Supreme Court overturned years of precedent started by Roe v. Wade and conferred the right to regulate abortions to individual states. This marked change has obvious implications in social, political, and medical circles. But why does it matter for employers?…
Students at Loyola Academy, a Catholic school in Illinois, pray together after winning the 8A high school championship in 2015. Six weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a praying football coach and clarified its stance on school prayer , a separate but related case came one step…
Professor Nicholas Damask worked with FIRE to defend his academic freedom rights after Scottsdale Community College tried to force him to apologize for quiz questions about Islamic terrorism. (Photo courtesy of Damask) The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit…
To the Editor; The 8/1/22 Inside Higher Ed article, “Seattle Pacific Sues Washington AG,” contains several errors of fact that need to be corrected and additional editorial decisions that demonstrate bias in both terminology and perspective. In the initial news sub-headline, author Josh Moody incorrectly described the reason Seattle Pacific…