News from around the world. Curated by Mark McDowell. Posts do not constitute agreement or endorsement.
In the Nov. 4, 2020 photo, The Supreme Court in Washington. A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Muslim men who were placed on the government’s no-fly list because they refused to serve as FBI informants can seek to hold federal agents financially liable. The justices continued a string of…
Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Assn. , No. 18-540: Arkansas’ Act 900 regulates the price at which pharmacy benefit managers (“PBMs”) reimburse pharmacies for the cost of drugs covered by prescription-drug plans. Respondent Pharmaceutical Care Management Association is a trade association representing PBMs that brought suit claiming that Act 900…
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to appeal judge’s ruling that, based on religious freedom grounds, a refusal to serve customers based on their sexual orientation was permissible. (CNN)Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she will appeal a Michigan Claims Court judge’s ruling that allows discrimination against a same-sex couple…
Peter Youngren, founding pastor of Toronto International Celebration Church, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in a photo uploaded to Facebook on Nov. 2, 2020. A Canadian church has filed suit against a provincial government over a rule that prohibits gatherings of more than 10 people, arguing that it interferes with…
The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured in this file photo from Aug. 4, 2020. photo by: Journal-World File Photo In an ongoing legal dispute over a Douglas County health order that limits bars’ operating hours amid the coronavirus pandemic, an attorney now says a U.S. Supreme…
This post arrives thanks to Erica M. Van Heyde, a 2020 graduate of The Ohio State University Mortiz College of Law, who joins Squire Patton Boggs as an associate in 2021. Like most states, Kentucky is experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases. Governor Andy Beshear has responded by implementing a…
Mark Kwiecienski complains about menorahs in public parks in Basalt ( “Menorahs don’t belong on public land,” Dec. 4, The Aspen Times). He says such religious displays violate the prohibition on “separation of church and state” and the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. Kwiecienski is wrong on the facts…
Just days after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against New York State’s COVID-19 restrictions on religious services, a Christian school in Kentucky is asking SCOTUS if it can reopen, too. Danville Christian Academy, joined by Kentucky’s Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron , sued the state’s Democratic Governor…
On November 25, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a preliminary injunction in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo , No. 20A87, holding that New York may not enforce 10- or 25-person congregation-size limits on certain Catholic churches and Orthodox synagogues, pending further Supreme Court litigation, because the restrictions…
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flatly rejected a plea by a Louisiana megachurch pastor to keep his church fully open against orders from the government to limit the size of worship gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That pastor, Tony Spell , whose full legal name is Mark Anthony Spell,…
Landon Coleman is pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Odessa. Reach him at landon@immanuelodessa.com or read his blog at Regular Pastor.com “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right…
WASHINGTON, Nov. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Family Research Council (FRC) today praised the recent decision by a federal appeals court striking down two local ordinances banning sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) for minors. In the case of Otto v. City of Boca Raton , a three-judge panel of the U.S.…
Clarence Thomas (Getty) Two Supreme Court justices have suggested that the court needs to “fix” Obergefell v Hodges, the case that made same-sex marriage the law of the land. In October, the court decided not to hear a case involving Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who has been sued for…
Two religious organizations have filed emergency applications asking the U.S. Supreme Court to bar enforcement of New York’s COVID-19 limits on attendance at houses of worship. Agudath Israel of America, an umbrella organization representing affiliated Orthodox Jewish congregations across the nation, and two Orthodox congregations in New York City filed…
Agudath Israel, an umbrella organization representing haredi Orthodox Jews, is challenging New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s limitations on houses of worship in “red zones.” THE US Supreme Court ( JTA ) — After several challenges to pandemic-induced restrictions on houses of worship citing religious liberty, an Orthodox Jewish advocacy group…
They said they would do it and they have. A group of church leaders – including a vicar from Tunbridge Wells – has launched a claim for judicial review of the English and Welsh governments’ decision to close churches during lockdown. Rev Peter Sanlon In total 122 church leaders from…
On May 29, 2020, the Supreme Court denied an injunction in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom . The Court’s order was a single sentence. Chief Justice Roberts wrote a solo concurrence that stretched about two pages. According to Westlaw, 114 cases have cited the Chief’s concurrence. (I cited…
They said they would do it and they have. A group of church leaders – including a vicar from Tunbridge Wells – has launched a claim for judicial review of the English and Welsh governments’ decision to close churches during lockdown. Rev Peter Sanlon In total 122 church leaders from…
SALEM, Mass., Nov. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — While The Satanic Temple’s appeal in its lawsuit over Missouri’s abortion laws is still scheduled to be reviewed by the US Supreme Court to decide if they will hear the case, the US Supreme Court dismissed The Satanic Temple’s (TST’s) motion to disqualify…
Donald Trump and Amy Coney Barrett, AFP photo by Brendan Smialowski. Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s first week as an active Supreme Court justice began on Nov. 2 and almost immediately included a case that could test her credentials as a religious conservative. On the surface, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia…
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York filed a petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court on Thursday, requesting an emergency injunction that would block COVID-19 restrictions on in-person church attendance. Though the Supreme Court previously rejected a similar challenge during the earlier stage of the pandemic,…
A marijuana plant is visible at Compassionate Care Foundation’s medical marijuana dispensary in Egg Harbor Township, N.J. The First Amendment does not a protect a "ganja minister’s" right to cultivate more cannabis plants than state law allows, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday. Aaron Snyder Torline was an…
A federal lawsuit challenging restrictions on houses of worship, imposed by Delaware Gov. John Carney at the start of the pandemic, has been settled. In exchange for the Rev. Christopher Bullock dropping his lawsuit, Carney agreed that in any future emergency requiring state actions, the governor "must treat churches and…
Maine tuition case The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld how Maine provides public education: utilizing nonsectarian private schools in areas without their own public school. The ruling, in Carson v. Makin , examined recent U.S. Supreme Court funding decisions that the plaintiff argued invalidated the sectarian restriction,…
Bill Chizek/iStock/Getty Images Plus The Supreme Court heard opening arguments in an important religious discrimination case on Wednesday that has been festering since 2018: Sharonell Fulton et. al. v. City of Philadelphia . Back in 2018, the liberal Philadelphia Inquirer discovered that two religiously based foster-care agencies — Bethany Christian…