Current Events

The Supreme Court slams California restrictions on indoor church services while finding that capacity and singing limitations can stand.

The guarantee of Free Speech exists next to the religious freedom guarantees in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. These rights often intersect, as the ability to speak according to one’s conscience is innate to almost any conscientious belief system in existence. To apply restrictions to speech would also be applying restrictions to the exercise of religion.

Dalberiste may help courts further define the boundaries of true unnecessary burdens on employers, the role of union agreements in preferring seniority in employee scheduling, and how this affects less senior employees’ opportunity for religious accommodation.

We are sad to announce the passing of Dr. C. Norman Farley in November 2020.  He formally served on our Advisory panel beginning in 2016, and he, along with his wife Alice, have been great supporters and volunteers of ReligiousLiberty.TV and Founders’ First Freedom. 

In a major victory for religious congregations, delivered late on Thanksgiving Eve, the United States Supreme Court blocked the state of New York from implementing gathering restrictions that the Court ruled discriminate against religious congregations.

What if the church is a place where lives are transformed from the inside out, where people make decisions to follow Christ, and find not only find community, but actual real and powerful solutions to their failing marriage, their chronic mental illnesses, their abject loneliness, their anger and fear and judgment, and pain?

On October 6, 2020, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case on the issue of whether individual FBI agents can be held financially liable if they are found to have violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  The underlying case involves Muslim-Americans who alleged that individual FBI agents put them on the “no fly” list after they refused to act as informants against fellow Muslims in terrorism-related investigations.

Ginsburg wrote little on the religion clauses, but she frequently joined with those Justices who favored a strong separation of church and state. 

Los Angeles County lost another battle in its bid to stop Grace Community Church from meeting indoors today. Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff found that, contrary to the County’s representation, the Sun Valley megachurch led by Pastor John MacArthur did not violate any court order because no court order prohibited the congregation from meeting indoors.

Five months into the pandemic shut-down, Los Angeles County is asking for the courts to find that Grace Community Church Pastor John MacArthur acted in contempt of court for holding services this past weekend, and for fines of $20,000 against church leaders and the congregation.