FILE – Tennessee Sen. Paul Rose, R-Tipton, speaks on his bill allowing faith-based adoption agencies to decline to place children with same-sex couples because of their religious belief during a legislative session, Jan. 14, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. On Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, appellate judges revived a couple’s lawsuit that…
Appellate Judges Revive Jewish Couple’s Lawsuit Alleging Adoption Bias Under Tennessee Law
Appellate Judges Revive Jewish Couple’s Lawsuit Alleging Adoption Bias Under Tennessee Law August 25th, 20PM August 25th, 20PM NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Appellate judges have revived a couple’s lawsuitthat alleges a state-sponsored Christian adoption agency wouldn’t help them because they are Jewish and argues that a Tennessee law protecting such…
Court rules Jewish couple can sue state for ’20 adoption law
Tennessee state Sen. Paul Rose, R-Tipton, speaks on his bill allowing faith-based adoption agencies to decline to place children with same-sex couples because of their religious belief during a legislative session in 2020. On Thursday, appellate judges revived a couple’s lawsuit that alleges a state-sponsored Christian adoption agency wouldn’t help…
Appellate Judges Revive Jewish Couple’s Lawsuit Alleging Adoption Bias Under Tennessee Law
Appellate Judges Revive Jewish Couple’s Lawsuit Alleging Adoption Bias Under Tennessee Law August 25th, 22PM August 25th, 22PM NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Appellate judges have revived a couple’s lawsuitthat alleges a state-sponsored Christian adoption agency wouldn’t help them because they are Jewish and argues that a Tennessee law protecting such…
‘Warped history’: how the US supreme court justified gutting gay rights
A pride flag flies in front of the US supreme court, in Washington. The extreme religious right’s mission to roll back civil rights from abortion to public accommodations is being fueled by false facts and false history. Recent articles in the New Republic have documented the shaky factual foundation behind…
Jewish couple can sue Tennessee over Christian home’s refusal to train them to be foster parents
Tennessee Sen. Paul Rose, R-Tipton, speaks on his bill allowing faith-based adoption agencies to decline to place children with same-sex couples because of their religious belief during a legislative session, Jan. 14, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. On Thursday, Aug. 24, … Tennessee’s Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the state’s…
Appellate judges revive Jewish couple’s lawsuit alleging adoption bias under Tennessee law
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Appellate judges have revived a couple’s lawsuit that alleges a state-sponsored Christian adoption agency wouldn’t help them because they are Jewish and argues that a Tennessee law protecting such denials is unconstitutional. On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals ruled that Elizabeth…
Maryland court rules religious exemption bars discrimination claim against CRS
This is the logo of Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, which is based in Baltimore. In case involving CRS employee, the Maryland Supreme Court ruled Aug. 14, 2023, that job protections based on sex or gender identity do not extend to sexual orientation; gay…
Catholic church, school lawsuits against Michigan civil rights law thrown out
FILE: Students at Sacred Heart Academy in Grand Rapids on Monday, Sept. 14, 2020. (Cory Morse | MLive.com) Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act is not violating the rights of a Catholic church and school in the state, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. St. Joseph Catholic Church in St. Johns and…
Catholic church, school lawsuits against Michigan civil rights law thrown out
FILE: Students at Sacred Heart Academy in Grand Rapids on Monday, Sept. 14, 2020. (Cory Morse | MLive.com) Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act is not violating the rights of a Catholic church and school in the state, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. St. Joseph Catholic Church in St. Johns and…
SC school board urged to allow prayer at meetings despite atheist group’s complaint
A Christian conservative legal group is encouraging a South Carolina school board to continue allowing members to open meetings with prayer after a secular legal organization demanded that the tradition be halted earlier this month. The First Liberty Institute, a legal nonprofit that has successfully argued First Amendment cases before…
Williams: Mixing public education and religion debases both, and our democracy
Even as a youngster, I could see the difference, and it went beyond the white shirt, blue slacks and plaid tie that was my uniform. From the morning prayers to religious instruction to the nuns who taught me, it was an education steeped in Catholicism — subsidized by the tuition…
Ohio would be better on religious freedom it follows leads of Mississippi, Illinois| Opinion
"Religious liberty protects one of the most fundamental and universal elements of the human experience — our desire to know our Creator," Deborah A. O’Malley Deborah A. O’Malley Guest Columnist Parma native Deborah A. O’Malley is associate director of the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government at the University of…
Maryland court rules religious exemption bars discrimination claim against CRS
This is the logo of Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, which is based in Baltimore. In case involving CRS employee, the Maryland Supreme Court ruled Aug. 14, 2023, that job protections based on sex or gender identity do not extend to sexual orientation; gay…
Texas atheist group protests denial of downtown space to advertise its event
Metroplex Atheists put up a billboard to advertise an upcoming seminar after the group’s application to hang banners in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, about the event was denied. Photo courtesy of American Atheists Aug. 18 (UPI) — Members of Metroplex Atheists, a north Texas organization, plan to march Saturday in…
Lois McLatchie Miller: European Court of Human Rights to settle Covid worship question
Lois McLatchie Miller Slovakia might be a distant land, and Covid a distant memory. But a significant case brought to the European Court of Human Rights could bring closure to some of the legal questions posed during the pandemic – much-needed closure that many European nations have not yet received,…
Maryland court rules religious exemption bars discrimination claim against CRS
The Maryland Supreme Court ruled Aug. 14 that the religious exemption in the state’s Fair Employment Practices Act "bars claims (of) religious, sexual orientation, and gender identity discrimination against religious organizations by employees who perform duties that directly further the core mission(s) of the religious entity." In its 4-3 decision,…
Atheist and agnostic fired for not attending company prayers win $50K in suit
Website of Aurora Pro Services. Screen grab (RNS) — A North Carolina home repair company that advertises as “Grandmother Approved” has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by two employees who were fired for refusing to participate in daily Christian prayers. The lawsuit , brought by the…
OKLAHOMA WATCH: Legal challenge filed against publicly funded religious charter school
A group of public school parents, taxpayers and faith leaders last week filed the first legal challenge to a state-sanctioned religious charter school. They’ve asked an Oklahoma County judge for an injunction to stop the process of opening the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The group argues in…
The Opening of a Religious Charter School Is Not Christian Nationalism
(GlobalStock/Getty Images) “Something deeply un-American is underway in the state of Oklahoma,” writes Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in the New York Times . Mourning — and suing to prevent — the opening of a religious charter school in Tulsa, she decries that…
Supreme Court says web designer can deny LGBTQ+ couples. NY photographer suit resurfaces
An Elmira photographer whose lawsuit over New York’s anti-discrimination laws was dismissed in 2021 is pursuing an appeal, buoyed by a recent Supreme Court ruling in a similar case. Emilee Carpenter, who specializes in wedding photography , filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, claiming New York’s requirement — if…
Supreme Court says web designer can deny LGBTQ+ couples. NY photographer suit resurfaces
An Elmira photographer whose lawsuit over New York’s anti-discrimination laws was dismissed in 2021 is pursuing an appeal, buoyed by a recent Supreme Court ruling in a similar case. Emilee Carpenter, who specializes in wedding photography , filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, claiming New York’s requirement — if…
Groups sue to block Catholic charter school in Oklahoma; state leaders stand firm
Shutterstock Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 2, 2023 / 09:30 am Nine Oklahoma residents and several interest groups, including the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, filed a lawsuit against state leaders to block the sponsorship and funding for the first approved Catholic charter school in the country. The Statewide…
Oklahoma parents begin legal fight against first publicly-funded Catholic school in the US
A long-expected lawsuit has arrived to fight the creation of the country’s first religious charter school . The case, filed Monday in Oklahoma County District Court, kicks off likely years of litigation to examine the possibility of publicly funded religious schools, starting with St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School.…
Legal Challenge Filed Against Publicly Funded Religious Charter School
Opponents of an application by a Catholic virtual charter school wait for the start of a meeting by the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City on Monday, June 5, 2023. (Paul Monies/Oklahoma Watch) A group of public school parents, taxpayers and faith leaders…