Justice Department says Central District injunction hampers federal agents’ ability to enforce immigration laws On August 7, 2025, Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to halt a Central District of California court order that bars federal immigration agents from conducting detentive stops based solely on…
Author: ReligiousLiberty.TV
An American Doctor’s Unflinching Account from Inside Gaza’s Hospitals
Public understanding of armed conflict often arrives through filtered channels. Governments issue statements. News agencies cite unnamed sources. Social media circulates unverified images at lightning speed. For Gaza, this has created a particularly dense fog of claims and counterclaims, where the reality on the ground is obscured by the contest over how it is told….
Federal Judge Halts Utah Psilocybin Prosecution in Landmark Religious Freedom Case
Ruling denies dismissal motion and blocks state charges against entheogenic church leader On August 4, 2025, U.S. District Judge Jill N. Parrish ruled in favor of a Utah-based entheogenic church, denying state and city officials’ motion to dismiss and issuing an anti-suit injunction that blocks the state’s ongoing criminal prosecution against its founder. The decision…
Free Exercise Rights Are Expanding — and the Establishment Clause Is Cracking
The 1990 Smith decision curtailed religious liberty claims, but later rulings have expanded the Free Exercise Clause beyond its original scope When the Supreme Court decided Employment Division v. Smith in 1990, it marked one of the sharpest contractions of the Free Exercise Clause in American history. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia hel……
The Reformation’s Democratic Legacy
By Michael Peabody, Esq. A walk through Washington, D.C., can stir something uniquely American. Beneath the shadows of monuments and along the edges of the National Mall, a quiet but persistent idea takes hold. The child standing in front of the White House is not excluded from imagining themselves inside it. They are not barred…
Federal Judge Dismisses Parents’ First Amendment Lawsuit Over Religious Curriculum Reimbursement
Court rules Idaho public charter school not required to fund faith-based instructional materials TL;DR (“too long; didnt read”) summary: On August 6, 2025, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill dismissed a lawsuit by Chris and Nicole Trakel against Idaho Superintendent Debbie Critchfield. The Trakels claimed the Idaho Home Learning Academy violated their First Amendment rights…
The Double Edge of Religious Liberty: How the “Most Favored Nation” Theory Cuts Both Ways
What a Trade Principle Is Doing in Church-State Law—and Why It’s Creating New Legal Tensions In recent years, a once-obscure idea has quietly reshaped the legal landscape of religious liberty. Known as the “most favored nation” (MFN) theory, this concept has become a central part of how courts determine whether the government is treating religious…
Justice Department: GWU Failed to Protect Jewish Students From Antisemitic Abuse
Jewish students at George Washington University say they were threatened, harassed, and forced to flee campus spaces last spring. Now, the U.S. Department of Justice agrees — concluding that the university failed to act on reports of antisemitic abuse in what the government calls a “deliberate indifference” to civil rights violations. In an August 12,…
“Declaring Bankruptcy” in the Temple: Broken Tables, Roman Law, and the Church–State Ledger
The Gospel accounts of Jesus cleansing the temple are often read as a burst of righteous anger, a prophet’s visceral response to commerce crowding out prayer. That reading is not wrong, but it is incomplete. A legal and economic lens clarifies the moment. When Jesus scatters coins and overturns tables, he is not staging a…
Eighth Circuit Orders Minnesota Prison to Reinstate Bible-Based Masculinity Program Pending Trial
On August 14, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed a Minnesota federal judge’s denial of a preliminary injunction and ordered the Minnesota Department of Corrections (MDOC) to reinstate the “Quest for Authentic Manhood” program at the Minnesota Correctional Facility–St. Cloud, pending full resolution of the case. What This Means (Plain…