News from around the world. Curated by Mark McDowell. Posts do not constitute agreement or endorsement.
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…
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…
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…
Catholic Relief Services is a Baltimore-based nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian relief worldwide. A federal judge has ruled that Catholic Relief Services, an international humanitarian aid organization based in Baltimore, has been discriminating against a gay employee by denying his husband health insurance. When the employee, known in court records…
AJ_Watt via Getty Images Dive Brief: Seattle Pacific University has sued the Washington Attorney General (AG) for investigating employment practices it says are required by its religious beliefs and protected by the First Amendment, the lawsuit alleges ( Seattle Pacific University v. Ferguson , No. 22-05540 (W.D. Wash. July 27,…
This lawsuit follows one filed in Leon County Circuit Court June by a South Florida Jewish congregation that also argues the new law, which provides no exceptions for rape and incest, violates rights to privacy and religion. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo By Matt Dixon 08/02/2022 01:22 PM EDT TALLAHASSEE, Fla.…
Clergy members of five religions sued the state of Florida on Monday over a new law criminalizing most abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy, saying the ban violates their religious freedom rights. The five separate lawsuits, filed in Miami-Dade County, claim the state’s ban curtails the clergy…
In its late-June flurry, the Supreme Court ballooned the Second Amendment, crippled the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to address climate change, and scrapped the constitutional right to abortion. These rulings — especially the chaos-inducing overruling of Roe v. Wade — have dominated the headlines. Meanwhile another seismic change to American…
MADISON, Wis. (CN) — A Wisconsin federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit from a local church challenging a nearly 100-year-old provision in state law it says will cost the congregation their land for voting to leave a conference of Methodist churches. The Hebron Community Methodist Church of Fort Atkinson,…
Danny Masterson was photographed at a Hollywood premiere on June 29, 2015. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images.) The Church of Scientology is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case that questions whether religious groups can force their followers — and even their ex-followers — to submit to internal…
KEY CASES Establishment Clause Maine Scholarship Program Excluding Sectarian Schools Unconstitutional In Carson v. Makin , 142 S.Ct. 1987 (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court struck a tuition assistance program that requires school districts to transmit payment to the secondary school — public or private, in-state or out-of-state — that parents…
Freedom Forum The Supreme Court, in striking down a unique tuition assistance program in Maine, could foreshadow the future of religious freedom under the First Amendment. THE CASE The very rural state of Maine is not able to provide a local public secondary school in every school district. To fill…
St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome (Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame) The world’s leading defenders of religious freedom will gather in Rome July 20-22 for the second annual Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit, hosted by the Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative . The summit’s theme is Dignitatis humanae — the…
If you ask some Americans, the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling did more than overturn Roe v. Wade. They believe it also shrunk the distance between church and state. These more liberal religious freedom advocates fear the court has cleared the way for lawmakers to privilege conservative religious teachings on when…
BARTH KECK Intelligent Design . Surely you remember that concept making news years ago, the one claiming “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” Well, Intelligent Design is about to make a comeback.…
Erik J. Chaput teaches in the School of Continuing Education at Providence College. He is the author of "Rhode Island and the Establishment Clause," a digital curriculum guide for teachers hosted on RIHS.org. The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to remove a federal…
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, foreground, speaks to supporters at Wearhouse 25 during a party to kick off her re-election bid for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District seat, Tuesday, June 28, 2022, in Grand Junction, Colo. You can say I came out of the womb a Baptist preacher. In fact, I’m Baptist…
In its last two weeks of a blockbuster term, the U.S. Supreme Court released two major First Amendment decisions dealing with religious liberty: Carson v. Makin , about whether Maine could refuse to fund religious schools, and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District , about whether a football coach could pray…
In its last two weeks of a blockbuster term, the U.S. Supreme Court released two major First Amendment decisions dealing with religious liberty: Carson v. Makin, about whether Maine could refuse to fund religious schools, and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, about whether a football coach could pray on the…
Bremerton assistant football coach Joe Kennedy, obscured at center in blue, is surrounded by Centralia High School football players as they kneel and pray with him on the field after their game on Oct. 16, 2015, in Bremerton, Washington. After losing his coaching job for refusing to stop kneeling in…
The Supreme Court recently ruled , 6-3, along party lines in favor of a public school football coach who lost his job after kneeling and praying on the field. The Bremerton School District, when it learned of the prayers, told former assistant coach Joseph Kennedy to stop as it could…
Employers Respond to Supreme Court’s Decision Striking Down Roe v. Wade In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade , several large national employers, including Disney and Facebook, stated that they will cover expenses incurred by an employee who must travel out of state for…
Toobin breaks down what Supreme Court opinion says about the right to religious freedom 01:46 Barbara A. Perry is Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies at UVA’s Miller Center. She was a 1994-95 Supreme Court fellow and is the co-author of " Freedom and the Court: Civil…
Its conservative majority is expanding the right to religious exercise at the expense of church-state separation AMERICA’S SUPREME COURT has long steered a careful path between the twin religion clauses of the First Amendment: the “free-exercise” clause, which requires a degree of friendliness towards religion and its adherents; and the…