An eight-year conflict has left a Pennsylvania family struggling to practice their faith against a sewage ordinance in Sugar Grove Township, Pennsylvania. Joseph and Barbara Yoder, an Old Order Amish family, have been ordered by local courts to install an electric pump in their outhouse, an action that directly contradicts their religious beliefs.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump v. Hawaii (Docket No. 17-965) and directed the parties to prepare briefs and arguments on the issue of whether President Donald Trump’s travel ban, Proclamation No. 9645, also known as Executive Order 3 (EO-3), violates the Establishment Clause.
The state of New York is considering guidelines that could dramatically change the relationship between public and private schools.
On January 17, 2018, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lower court improperly granted summary judgment against plaintiffs in a holy day observance case.
Christians everywhere are driven by the same passion—to share God’s love with the world. But not all agree on how that’s best accomplished. Some insist that civil authorities should be involved—making it harder to run afoul of the Bible’s timeless principles. Others feel compelled to witness on their own. Perhaps it’s time to ask the age-old question: What would Jesus do? Good news. He answered that question two thousand years ago
Churches like nothing more than to have a wonderful and exciting conversion story to proclaim to the world. What happens if proclaiming such a story puts lives in danger? What happens when a person is put in danger against his will? These questions have been at the center of a fascinating legal case, Doe v. First Presbyterian Church U.S.A. of Tulsa, (OK Sup. Ct., Dec. 19, 2017), involving a church that announced on the internet how one converted from Islam to Christianity.
On Monday, January 8, 2018, the United States Supreme Court declined to review both Barber v. Bryant and Campaign for Southern Equality v. Bryant, two suits filed against Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant contesting the state’s law (HB 1523) which allows public officials and businesses to deny services to LGBT people for religious reasons.
Last summer, Hurricane Harvey created a wake of destruction across southeast Texas, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) stepped in to provide disaster-relief grants to some organizations. Under FEMA’s policy at the time, churches could receive funding to repair only those portions of their facilities where less than 50 percent of the space was used for religious purposes. As a result, schools or church-run hospitals and community centers could receive aid, but not church sanctuaries.
A brief outline of America’s top religious liberty issues in 2017.
As part of the final push to enact tax reform before the end of the year, a proposed tax code change that would permit churches and other non-profit organizations to engage in partisan political campaigning has been dropped from the House and Senate reconciliation version of 2017 tax bill. Although the House version of the bill had included a repeal of the controversial Johnson Amendment, the Senate version kept it intact. Proponents of the repeal have argued for the right of pastors to speak freely about candidates from the pulpit, and opponents claim it would provide a “dark money” tax-exempt way to launder otherwise non-tax deductible campaign donations.