Some interesting law and religion news stories from around the web this week:
- The legislatures of Indiana and Georgia may adopt state RFRA bills in 2015.
- Four Christian colleges in Oklahoma are challenging the exemptions that exist for religious nonprofit entities opposed to the contraceptive coverage mandate of the Affordable Care Act. According to these groups, the current exemption, which requires them to sign away coverage to another party, makes them complicit in providing contraceptives.
- A Michigan federal district court issued a permanent injunction barring enforcement of the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage mandate in the case of Autocam Corp. v. Burwell.
- The Arizona Economic Appeals Board has held that a church-affiliated elementary school is exempt from the state unemployment insurance law. The Appeals Board noted that the exemption applies to the school because its curriculum is infused with religious faith.
- The Mayor of the District of Columbia is set to decide whether to sustain or veto two amendments to the city’s Human Rights Act. These amendments would revoke certain religious liberty protections that Congress passed for the District in 1989.
- On Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit heard arguments relating to the constitutionality of a Texas statute that requires clinics performing abortions to operate like ambulatory surgical centers.
- The European Court of Human Rights is set to hear an appeal from the French supreme administrative court concerning France’s euthanasia legislation.
- The government of Turkey has granted Syriac Christians the right to build a new church in Istanbul. This will be the first Christian church built in Turkey since the fall of the Ottoman Empire during World War One.
- Saudi Arabia’s national airline is introducing new seating assignments that will be based on gender separation. Under the new rules, males and females will not be allowed to sit adjacent to one another unless they are closes relatives.