News from around the world. Curated by Mark McDowell. Posts do not constitute agreement or endorsement.
A state appeals court Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by a Waco justice of the peace who sued after a state ethics agency rebuked her in 2019 for refusing to marry same-sex couples. Justice of the Peace Dianne Hensley sued the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, arguing that its sanction violated…
Notre Dame, IN — Religious social service organizations in many states—from adoption agencies to food pantries—may be faced with the choice of secularizing or giving up their funding and closing as a result of a recent decision regarding privately operated charter schools in North Carolina. The Notre Dame Religious Liberty…
In a previous court ruling, judges said that the matter had been resolved because the couple ended up becoming foster parents. Now, the couple is appealing. KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A Jewish couple in Knox County who was denied by a Methodist foster care agency is arguing they can fairly sue…
Charter Day School in Leland, NC The University of Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Clinic, along with the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty and the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team of the Religious Freedom Institute, filed an amicus brief in support of Charter Day School in Brunswick County,…
According to a press release from the Thomas More Society, Miller was approached by a lesbian couple in August 2017 after they asked her to design a custom cake for their wedding. The couple then filed a complaint with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), a state agency…
A California judge has ruled in favor of a Christian cake designer in the latest court decision regarding the conflict between religious freedom and same-sex marriage. Read This Issue More Newsletters Eric Bradshaw, a Superior Court judge in Kern County, said in an October 21 opinion the state violated Cathy…
A California judge has ruled in favor of a Christian cake designer in the latest court decision regarding the conflict between religious freedom and same-sex marriage. Read This Issue More Newsletters Eric Bradshaw, a Superior Court judge in Kern County, said in an October 21 opinion the state violated Cathy…
Lady Justice and the United States Supreme Court building. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear another case about what states can force people to do when it comes to their faith and their business. The issues at stake are nearly identical to Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission…
Bryan Thomas for The New York Times As an Episcopal priest at a parish in Brooklyn, I’ve officiated at scores of weddings. At each one, I stand in wonder at the divine presence that envelops couples as they make solemn vows to each other. At my own wedding, though, I…
Cannabis plants. Photo by Crystalweed Cannabis/Unsplash/Creative Commons (RNS) — A cannabis church in Southern California — which was shut down by the county of San Bernardino over accusations it was illegally functioning as a dispensary — is taking its fight to reopen to the state Supreme Court, arguing that it…
Robert Lee Tradition has several definitions, one of which comes from Dictionary.com : "A long-established or inherited way of thinking or acting." Such a tradition has been in place from the beginning of our country when it comes to the separation of church and state. There have been some strong…
Notre Dame, IN — Religious social service organizations in many states—from adoption agencies to food pantries—may be faced with the choice of secularizing or giving up their funding and closing as a result of a recent decision regarding privately operated charter schools in North Carolina. The Notre Dame Religious Liberty…
Credit…Bryan Thomas for The New York Times As an Episcopal priest at a parish in Brooklyn, I’ve officiated at scores of weddings. At each one, I stand in wonder at the divine presence that envelops couples as they make solemn vows to each other. At my own wedding, though, I…
New Delhi: The two Supreme Court judges who delivered a split verdict in the hijab controversy chose not to examine whether wearing the headscarf amounts to an essential religious practice (ERP) in Islam. In their separate divergent opinions on the hijab ban, while Justice Hemant Gupta dismissed the petitions filed…
Justice Hemant Gupta In his verdict upholding the March 15 Karnataka High Court ruling validating the ban on wearing hijab in classrooms, Justice Hemant Gupta rejected the argument that denying students the right to wear a headscarf also denies them the right to attend classes, saying “it would… not amount…
Carol Logan, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Wilbur Slockish, hereditary chief of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, and Johnny Jackson, hereditary chief of the Cascade Tribe at Enola Hill, a sacred Native American site in the mountains near Mount Hood. The Yakama…
The U.S. Supreme Court began a new term earlier this month, and the upcoming docket includes a number of cases with workplace implications. Cases with direct impact on employment law raise issues of overtime pay and jurisdiction for employee lawsuits. Other cases involving religious freedoms and affirmative action could have…
A demonstrators holds a large cross outside the U.S. Supreme Court. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Reuters) – A federal appeals court ruling last week confirms fears that a spate of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions will be weaponized to break down the historic barrier between church and state, particularly with regard to…
Some say football is a religion, but does fervent support for Rangers FC amount to “philosophical belief”? Durham University final year student Beatrice Hale looks into an unusual employment tribunal case Rangers FC — image via Wiki Commons/Archibald99 The Employment Tribunal in Glasgow recently handed down its judgment in the…
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is deeply dismayed over what it calls a “Christian nationalist” interpretation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by an appeals court decision approving courtroom prayer. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that a local justice of the peace’s…
Across the ideological spectrum, there were predictions of dramatic consequences when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a public high school football coach’s right to pray on the field after games. Yet three months after the decision — and well into the football season — there’s no sign…
Stock photo of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Joe Daniel Price/Getty Images) WASHINGTON ( JTA ) — A number of Orthodox Jewish groups are filing friend of the court briefs on behalf of an evangelical Christian postal worker who is taking his case to get Sundays off to the Supreme Court.…
HIV prevention drug. Photo by NIAID. A federal district court judge in Fort Worth ruled that a Christian for-profit corporation does not have to provide HIV-preventive drug coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) due to the sincerely held religious beliefs of the company’s owner. It also found that the…
Attorney-at-law Bert Samuels. In April 2011, our parliament, having examined the original fundamental rights and freedoms contained in our Constitution, passed the new Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. We had experienced before then, 49 years of the constitutional rights in the old Chapter Three of that supreme law. The…
Then-Lt. Col. Khallid Shabazz, the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command’s chaplain, delivered a sermon during a Jumu’ah prayer service. Shabazz later was promoted to colonel, the highest rank ever attained by any Muslim chaplain in the U.S. military. (Sgt. 1st Class Claudio R. Tejada/ U.S. Army) A survey…