News from around the world. Curated by Mark McDowell. Posts do not constitute agreement or endorsement.
File photo of Philippine President Rodrigo R. Duterte with Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) leader Eduardo Manalo during the President’s visit at the INC Central Temple in Commonwealth, Quezon City on December 14, 2018. Photo Credit: Presidential Communications Operations Office, Wikipedia Commons People say that that there are two sides of…
The U.S. Supreme Court’s first major ruling on the meaning of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause was in Everson v. Board of Education, in 1947, when it upheld a state law that provided busing of students to parochial schools. The court’s entry into this constitutional maze foreshadowed the controversy that…
The U.S. Supreme Court has heard argument in two death penalty cases that present highly technical legal issues that could profoundly affect the extent to which prisoners convicted in state courts will have meaningful access to federal review of their cases. In two of the last cases to be argued…
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District . The case is about Joseph Kennedy, a Christian high school football coach in Washington state who regularly prayed before games. Eventually a majority of the players joined in as well, and one player’s parent…
Free speech on campus—and off—has become a flashpoint for U.S. colleges and universities. Students’ ability to post their comments and concerns online, to forward messages to others for whom they may not have been intended, and to record the speech of faculty and staff or other students and post what…
The briefs filed at the appeals court offer dramatically different descriptions of the police department’s role in the vigil. Credit: Thanamat Somwan/Shutterstock.com. A federal appeals court Thursday will take up a long-running constitutional dispute about a prayer vigil that was backed by the Ocala police chief amid a spate of…
TALLAHASSEE — A federal appeals court Thursday will take up a long-running constitutional dispute about a prayer vigil that was backed by the Ocala police chief amid a spate of shootings in the community. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in an appeal…
Former Bremerton, Wash., High School football coach Joseph A. Kennedy addresses the media outside the U.S. Supreme Court after April 25 oral arguments in his case. The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether prayers at the 50-yard line by former high school football coach Joseph A. Kennedy were protected by…
SCOTUS to hear case on football coach’s prayer 00:00 00:0003:10GO LIVE Facebook Twitter Email Embed SpeedNormal Autoplay An op-ed published Monday by NBC News proceeded to sound the alarm over the Supreme Court potentially siding with former high school football coach Joe Kennedy in his lawsuit against the Bremerton, Washington…
Joe Kennedy, a former football coach in Washington state, says his First Amendment rights were violated. Jeffrey Toobin is chief legal analyst for CNN and the author of "The Nine" and "The Oath." The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN. (CNN)By now, it’s…
A civil engineer, Mr. Redmond, was denied approval to build a small-scale hydroelectric project because of the impact it was going to have on the spiritual practices of a local First Nation group. Mr. Redmond applied for judicial review, arguing that his Charter right to freedom of religion was infringed.…
D. Scott Hickam, attorney for the Lake Hamilton School District, has determined that an advocacy group’s constitutional objections to including a prayer at the district’s monthly school board meetings are "substantially correct." The district recently removed prayer as an item on its standard agenda after a parent contacted the Freedom…
Captain Sukhbir Toor, who with three other Sikhs sued the U.S. Marine Corps April 11, 2022. | Sikh Coalition A group of four Sikh men are seeking a religious exemption from the Marine Corps allowing them to keep the beards and turbans that they say are essential to the practice…
D. Scott Hickam, attorney for the Lake Hamilton School District, has determined that an advocacy group’s constitutional objections to including a prayer at the district’s monthly school board meetings are "substantially correct." The district recently removed prayer as an item on its standard agenda after a parent contacted the Freedom…
AKRON, Ohio — Former workers from Akron Children’s Hospital who were fired after refusing to comply with the hospital’s vaccine mandate are now taking their battle to federal court. The 66 workers are represented in a class-action lawsuit that argues they were denied religious accommodations and that the hospital violated…
It was a remarkable demonstration that the American legal system respects the religious rights of all—rich or poor, virtuous or wicked. By an 8-to-1 vote, the Supreme Court agreed in Ramirez v. Collier that a convicted murderer was legally entitled to have his pastor pray in the death chamber and…
Once again, a United States senator asked a nominee for public office a question about personal religious practice, despite the clear prohibition of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. This time the questioner was Sen. Lindsay Graham, R.-S.C., and the setting was last week’s confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee…
Ketanji Brown Jackson will likely be joining the Supreme Court in time for a momentous year. (Photo … [+] Getty Images One of the most important cases that the Supreme Court has decided to hear recently is 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis . It pits the rights of a religious…
COMMENTARY BY The Supreme Court declined to hear the case of a religious organization claiming it had the right to refuse to hire individuals who did not share its religious beliefs. The case of Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission v. Matthew Woods centers on an employment discrimination claim against a religious…
The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court in St. Augustine v. Underly , urging the high court to review whether the Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction violated the First Amendment when it withheld transportation…
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn – Photo: C-SPAN. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) sought to re-litigate the fight over whether same-sex couples have the right to marry, grilling Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson over the issue during her confirmation hearing on Tuesday. For nearly 28 minutes of his allotted half-hour,…
The Supreme Court on Monday issued orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The justices did not add any new cases to their merits docket for the 2022-23 term. They denied review in a case involving the right of a religious non-profit to decline to hire employees who do…
Topline Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said Monday they want the conservative-leaning court to consider whether religious employers can legally discriminate against hiring people who don’t share their beliefs, after the court declined to hear a case where a a religious nonprofit wanted to block a bisexual…
ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. ( WJHL ) — A Wisconsin-based organization wants the City of Elizabethton to take down the three iconic crosses on Lynn Mountain that overlook the city. The crosses have been there for decades. The Freedom From Religion Foundation says it wants the crosses removed because they are located…
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Samuel Alito A Seattle-based Christian group that refused to hire a bisexual attorney was denied a Supreme Court hearing on Monday, though two justices on the high court’s right flank were clearly receptive to the religious organization’s position. In a six-page statement , Justice…