News from around the world. Curated by Mark McDowell. Posts do not constitute agreement or endorsement.
court cases to watch Surveying the news over the past week, I see action in a trio of cases working through our federal court system that are worth keeping an eye on from a religious liberty perspective. All three ask courts to apply and interpret relatively recent Supreme Court decisions.…
MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) today joined a coalition in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of Colorado’s public accommodations law, arguing that a business owner’s religious beliefs do not give a business open to the public the right to…
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…
Students work at their desks at Blanco Vista Elementary School in San Marcos on Aug. 23, 2021. The law passed last year says schools must display the national motto in a “conspicuous place” but only if the poster is “donated” or “purchased by private donations.” A new law requiring Texas…
MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) today joined a coalition in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of Colorado’s public accommodations law, arguing that a business owner’s religious beliefs do not give a business open to the public the right to…
Case Involves Colorado Wedding Website Designer’s Intent to Refuse to Create Wedding Websites for LGBTQ+ Couples; States Defend Constitutionality of Public Accommodations Law MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) today joined a coalition in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of…
In this week’s brief, attorneys for the Department of Education wrote that the association “completely disregarded core First Amendment principles when it refused to allow Cambridge Christian School to pray over the loudspeaker at its 2015 championship game solely because of the religious message of the prayer, even though secular,…
A new law requiring Texas schools to display donated "In God We Trust" posters is the latest move by Republican lawmakers to bring Christianity into taxpayer-funded institutions. Under the law, Senate Bill 797 , which passed during last year’s legislative session, schools are required to display the posters if they…
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization the United States Supreme Court overturned years of precedent started by Roe v. Wade and conferred the right to regulate abortions to individual states. This marked change has obvious implications in social, political, and medical circles. But why does it matter for employers?…
Students at Loyola Academy, a Catholic school in Illinois, pray together after winning the 8A high school championship in 2015. Six weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a praying football coach and clarified its stance on school prayer , a separate but related case came one step…
Professor Nicholas Damask worked with FIRE to defend his academic freedom rights after Scottsdale Community College tried to force him to apologize for quiz questions about Islamic terrorism. (Photo courtesy of Damask) The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit…
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…
RTD Metro Business law columnist, Karen Michael. Employees who were given a mandate to receive the COVID-19 vaccine or lose their jobs have agreed to settle their class action lawsuit filed against their employer for $10,337,500. Hospital workers from the NorthShore University HealthSystem were given an October 31, 2021, deadline…
Christian business owner continues to challenge law to deny websites to same-sex couples FILE – In this Sept. 1, 2021 file photo Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser talks about a grand jury investigation into the death of Elijah McClain, a Black man who was put in a chokehold by police…
Briefline The Guardian or Authority of Law, created by sculptor James Earle Fraser, rests on the side of the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 28, 2020. (Al Drago/Getty Images) In a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser argued that the decision by…
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.…
What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Maine will find out in the coming school year. A lot has changed since I wrote about state-funded Christian education in January. The Supreme Court’s decision in Casey v. Makin has all but forced Maine to pay for Christian education,…
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…
Ogboji In a majority decision of five in favour and two dissenting, the Supreme Court of Nigeria on Friday, June 17, in Abuja, affirmed the rights of female Muslim Students in Lagos state public primary and secondary schools to wear hijab. The seven-member panel of the Supreme Court affirmed the…
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…
Lansing — The Michigan Supreme Court on Thursday ruled Michigan’s current laws against discrimination based on sex includes a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation, a ruling that effectively stops businesses from denying services, housing or employment opportunities to the gay community. The ruling also left intact a lower…
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…