After a year of litigation, the state of California is ordered to back down and pay the attorney fees of a church that had to defend its civil right to meet.
Category: Legal Issues
California lifts location and attendance limits on churches following Supreme Court ruling
Following Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, California has lifted restrictions on the number of attendees and location of religious services.
US Supreme Court overturns California restrictions on in-home Bible studies
In a decision released Friday night, April 9, 2021, the United States Supreme Court has blocked California’s COVID-19 restrictions on in-home religious gatherings.
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Workplace Religious Accommodation Cases
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would not be hearing two major workplace religious accommodation cases.
LGBTQ+ Students Sue to Eliminate Title IX Religious Exemption
A group of current and former LGBTQ+ students have sued the U.S. Department of Education to either force their colleges, universities, and seminaries to change their policies or to stop providing federal financial assistance.
Free Speech and Social Media Censorship: An Analysis
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.
Court unanimously finds RFRA plaintiffs can sue FBI agents for money damages
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that plaintiffs whose religious rights were violated can sue government employees individually for monetary damages.
LA County recognizes churches are constitutionally exempt from stay-at-home order
The language of the new Los Angeles COVID restriction specifically exempts religious gatherings as a matter of constitutional right.
Court blocks New York Governor’s COVID Restrictions on Religious Congregations
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.
Goulard: Churches are Absolutely Essential
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?