HF 870 mandates public schools excuse students for off-campus religious instruction, aligning with 1952 Supreme Court ruling Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed House File 870 into law on June 7, 2025, obligating public school districts to honor parental requests for students to be excused during the school day to attend religious instruction off school grounds….
Category: Current Events
Federal Court Bars Discrimination Suit by Former Professor at Christian University, Citing Ministerial Exception
Judge allows negligent supervision claim to proceed, raising questions about employee protections at religious institutions On June 5, 2025, a federal judge in Minnesota partially dismissed the employment discrimination lawsuit of Rolanda Schmidt, a former professor at the University of Northwestern–St. Paul, ruling that her Title VII claim is barred by the ministerial exception under…
Breaking: Supreme Court Strikes Down Wisconsin Religious Tax Rule in Unanimous Decision
Ruling rebukes state for requiring faith-based charities to proselytize or limit services to co-religionists in order to qualify for unemployment tax exemption In a unanimous decision issued June 5, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Wisconsin violated the First Amendment by denying Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. and several of its subentities a religious exemption…
Texas Supreme Court Clears Way for Attorney General to Proceed Against Migrant Shelter
Ruling reverses trial court’s constitutional block on Ken Paxton’s attempt to revoke Annunciation House’s corporate charter The Texas Supreme Court ruled on May 30, 2025, that Attorney General Ken Paxton may initiate a quo warranto action against Annunciation House, a Catholic nonprofit in El Paso that provides shelter to migrants. A quo warranto action is…
Public Park Permits Don’t Justify Religious Speaker Removal at Franklin Pride, Court Finds
Case hinges on public forum status, viewpoint discrimination, and improper government enforcement. In a June 3, 2025 ruling, a federal judge declined to dismiss the core constitutional claims brought by five individuals who say they were ejected or barred from the 2023 Franklin Pride festival for expressing their religious beliefs. Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr….
THE DRONE, THE BEAST, AND THE DISAPPEARING SOUL
A Reckoning in Code As AI begins to govern more than labor and law, world religions—Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist—face a question long deferred: what happens to the soul when judgment is outsourced? The drone did not waver. It rose above the smoke-dark sky near Avdiivka, banking midair as data recalculated in real time. No…
A Court of Conscience: Law, Religion, and the Case for Dialogue
In a landscape strewn with cant, slogans, and cheap certainties, a lucid new essay reminds us that religion and law are not combatants but co-architects of our public conscience.
FBI Investigates Alleged Targeted Violence Against Religious Groups in Seattle
Investigation follows clashes at evangelical rally and counter-protests in Capitol Hill and City Hall The FBI has launched an investigation into allegations of targeted violence against religious groups in Seattle, following a series of confrontations between evangelical Christian demonstrators and LGBTQ+ counter-protesters that resulted in multiple arrests and heightened tensions. On May 24, 2025, Mayday…
Seventh-day Adventists and the United Nations: Why Engagement Does Not Compromise Doctrine
When A.T. Jones stood before the U.S. Congress in the 1880s to argue against Sunday laws, he wasn’t trying to win political favor — he was standing up for religious freedom. He spoke not on behalf of a party or platform, but as a Seventh-day Adventist defending conscience. Fast forward to today, and the church…
Nebraska’s Measles Case Highlights Concerns Over Religious Vaccine Exemptions
As the state reports its first measles case in eight years, rising religious exemptions raise public health and legal scrutiny When Nebraska confirmed its first case of measles in nearly a decade in May 2024, public health officials immediately expressed concern—not just about the virus, but about a broader vulnerability: a steady increase in the…