Some interesting law and religion news stories from around the web this week:
- A Tennessee judge has ruled that the state law banning same-sex marriage is constitutional, ending a “streak” of losses for advocates of traditional marriage.
- Lyle Denniston analyzes the meaning of the marriage ruling ‘streak.’ He argues that the “streak” had been broken prior to the ruling in Tennessee.
- The president of Gordon College has stoked controversy by seeking a religious exemption to federal workplace protections for gay and transgender workers.
- Ohio’s Freshway Foods won an exemption from the contraceptive mandate, making it the first company to receive such an exemption since the Hobby Lobby ruling in June.
- Valley Forge Christian College has joined the number of religious schools filing suit over the Affordable Care Act’s Contraceptive Mandate
- The US and Britain have decided against implementing a military operation to rescue the persecuted Yazidis, citing the success of American air strikes as the reason.
- Pro-ISIS leaflets were handed out in the middle of a London Shopping Center on Wednesday. The leaflets reportedly urged British Muslims to join the ISIS insurgency in Iraq.
- ISIS militants have taken control of a number of towns in the province of Aleppo, Syria.
- Petition: Robert P. George has created a petition, ‘A Plea on Behalf of Victims of Barbarism in Iraq,’ seeking to convince the US and others to take further action against ISIS
- Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has agreed to step aside and support his replacement, Haider al-Abadi.
- A Ukrainian MP is urging Ukraine’s Prosecutor General to instigate criminal proceedings against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for its alleged support of the pro-Russian rebels in Eastern Ukraine.
- This past Sunday, the President of the Central African Republic appointed the country’s first ever Muslim Prime Minister as part of a peace deal.