Contraception-Insurance Case Faces New Round at Top Court
The Supreme Court agreed Friday to again take up a dispute over whether religious groups are exempt from the requirement that health insurance plans cover contraception.
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Religion
Arson
Robert Doggart was improperly convicted of solicitation to commit federal arson for his planned attack on a mosque in New York because the religious building was not used in interstate commerce, as required by the underlying arson statute, the Sixth Circuit ruled. From his home in Tennessee, Doggart plotted to burn down the mosque, plans he shared with an FBI confidential informant.
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Eighth Circuit Hears Satanist’s Challenge to Missouri Abortion Law
A lawyer for a Satanist argued before the Eighth Circuit on Thursday that Missouri’s law requiring physicians to give women a pro-life booklet and an ultrasound before providing an abortion violates her First Amendment rights.
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Trump Reaches Out to Evangelicals With Religious-Freedom Push
Taking steps to shore up his poll numbers with the religious right, President Donald Trump marked the start of his Senate impeachment trial by pushing his 2018 executive order on school prayer into effect Thursday.
Read morePastor Loses Suit Over Gay-Conversion Videos on Vimeo
A federal magistrate threw out a discrimination suit against Vimeo from a California pastor who says he is the product of gay-conversion therapy.
Read moreStolen Church
The Evangelical Bible Church of San Diego sued Brian Hendry and Helix Bible Church in superior court, claiming Hendry filed false papers with the California Secretary of State to claim ownership of a church.
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Two Popes Cause a Furor Over Celibacy
Ever since Benedict XVI announced he would become the first pope in 600 years to resign, Catholic theologians and canon lawyers warned of the confusion in having two popes living side by side in the Vatican, one reigning, the other retired but calling himself “emeritus pope” and still wearing the white cassock of the papacy.
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Six Tourists Arrested After Feces Found in Sacred Machu Picchu Area
Six tourists, including a French woman, have been arrested over accusations that they damaged Peru’s cultural heritage by defecating in a sacred temple at the iconic Machu Picchu sanctuary.
Read morePastor Barred Over Gay-Conversion Videos Fights Vimeo
Vimeo bans users from extolling purported gay-conversion therapy, but a pastor who identifies as a “former homosexual” told a federal judge Monday that the video-hosting website shut down his account in bad faith.
Read moreRefugees
The Second Baptist Church sued San Antonio in federal court for refusing to let it lease some of its property to be used as a shelter for unaccompanied refuge-seeking boys.
Read moreThat Was Rude
The Benedictine Sisters of the Sacred Heart sued Daniel McLoyd aka IceJJFish for invasion of privacy, trespass and emotional distress, claiming the rapper broke into Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto to film a video featuring dancing and inappropriate language, in DuPage County Court, Ill.
Read moreNinth Circuit Slaps Down Trump Rules Prioritizing Abstinence
The Trump administration changed rules on how the government funds programs to prevent teen pregnancy, but the law requires that money to go to evidence-based programs – a hurdle, the Ninth Circuit ruled Friday, that abstinence-only programs don’t clear.
Read moreJurors and God
The Eleventh Circuit upheld the convictions of Corrine Brown, a former U.S. representative from Florida, finding that a juror was properly dismissed after he indicated he would base his verdict on what he believed he was told by God. A rule allowing a juror to “base his verdict on something other than the evidence would be antithetical to the rule of law and is contradicted by decades of precedent,” the court determined.
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Spirit World: Voodoo Makes a Comeback in Its Benin Home
In his long life, voodoo priest Kpohinto Medji has seen his religion flourish and then go into decline, banned for years by the authorities and pressured by other faiths.
Read moreChild Abuse Reporting
The Montana Supreme Court reversed a $35 million award in a negligence case against Jehovah’s Witnesses, finding that they are exempt from mandatory child abuse reporting because “canon law, church doctrine, or established church practice required that the reports of abuse in this case be kept confidential.”
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Brazil Judge Orders Netflix to Remove Film With Gay Jesus
A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ordered Netflix to stop showing a Christmas special that some called blasphemous for depicting Jesus as a gay man and which prompted a gasoline bomb attack on the satirists behind the program.
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Maine Ban on Religious-School Funding May Survive Appeal
Families challenging a Maine law that denies public funding for religious schools faced a highly skeptical audience today at the First Circuit.
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Pentagon Rejects Trump Threat to Iranian Cultural Sites
The Pentagon on Monday distanced itself from President Donald Trump’s assertions that he would bomb Iranian cultural sites despite international prohibitions of such attacks.
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Modi Ratchets Up Repression Against India’s Muslims
Sometimes Arshad Hussain disappears. He will be sitting on the bed, watching relatives, neighbors and journalists pour into his house when suddenly scenes of his dead son wash over him.
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