On May 12, Rep. Donald Beyer (D-Va) and 103 co-sponsors introduced legislation that would prohibit immigration authorities from refusing to admit aliens on the basis of religion or lack of religion.
Category: Legal Issues
Court rules Title VII parties can recover fees on procedural wins
The Supreme Court’s ruling in CRST Van Lines v. EEOC (5/19/16) allows potential award of attorney fees even if court does not reach merits.
Religious Property Dispute- Katy Perry v. the Nuns v. a Restaurateur v. the Archdiocese
Last year, the Los Angeles Archdiocese agreed to sell a former convent belonging to the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary to pop singer Katy Perry for $14.5 million in cash. At the same time, the nuns agreed to sell the property to restaurateur Dana Hollister for $15.5 million. Now it’s up to a court to decide which of these sales will go through.
Declaring the United States a “Christian Nation” does not make it one
Why attempt to change the Constitution to declare the United States is a Christian Nation is a pointless exercise – satire from the American Sentinel – 1886
California legislation seeks to prevent LGBT discrimination in higher education
The California legislature is considering two bills that would make it difficult for religious colleges and universities to discriminate on the basis of gender identity.
Trump’s troubling evasion of basic religious liberty questions
Donald Trump evades questions about whether employers should have right to discriminate on basis of religion and the tax-exempt status of religious organizations.
Mississippi legislature passes law to weaponize churches
There are two distinct reactions to gun violence. One is to tighten gun regulations in an effort to get guns off the street. The other is to arm more people so they can kill would-be attackers. The Charleston, South Carolina, shooting at a church last year has provided the Mississippi legislature with a pretext to do the latter.
Legal Analysis: Zubik petitioners may have pushed argument too far
By Jason Hines, PhD, JD – Prior to 1990, the Supreme Court’s standard in determining whether a law violated a citizen’s free exercise of religion was intimately tied to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. An Adventist, Adele Sherbert, sued to receive unemployment benefits after she was fired from her job because she refused to work on the Sabbath. In the case that now bears her name, Sherbert v. Verner, the Court ruled in her favor, establishing the rule that the government could not substantially burden a citizen’s religious freedom unless the government had a compelling interest and had narrowly tailored the measure to minimize infringement.
Supreme Court hears oral arguments in key contraception mandate case
This morning the eight-member United States Supreme Court heard the contraceptive mandate cases that were consolidated under the name Zubik v. Burwell (Docket Number 15-191). (See transcript.) They key issue in all the cases was religious employers who rejected the method of receiving the “religious employer exemption” to the Affordable Care Act (2010) which required group health plans and insurance issues to offer plans that provided “approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.”
Why Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland deserves serious consideration
This morning President Obama threw a straight pitch directly into the strike zone when he nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the United States Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia. Garland, currently the chief judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, was confirmed to that court in 1997 with bipartisan Congressional support and has been well regarded by both Democrats and Republicans.