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.
Category: Legal Issues
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?
FLORIDA: School that gets gov’t money scrutinized for firing teacher based on sexual orientation
In June, a Florida Seventh-day Adventist school that received state and federal funding fired a teacher because of his sexual orientation.
Supreme Court not likely to make individual FBI agents pay for allegedly violating Religious Freedom Restoration Act
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.
Satanic Temple claims abortion is a religious ritual protected by the Free Exercise clause
The Satanic Temple is asserting a free exercise right to abortion as a religious ritual in lawsuits against the state of Missouri and against a Louisiana advertising agency.
Church deserves trial on constitutionality of shutdown order rules judge
Contempt of court is a quasi-criminal act, and the court cannot punish someone for breaking a regulation if that regulation is not constitutional.