Some interesting law and religion news stories from around the web this week:
- The first U.S. serviceman killed in ground combat operations against ISIS was killed during an operation that rescued approximately 70 hostages.
- The EEOC is investigating complaints that administrators at Southern University at New Orleans discriminated against Muslim professors and job candidates.
- The National Association of Evangelicals passed a resolution providing that Evangelicals who support and oppose the death penalty can both legitimately ground their beliefs in Christian ethics.
- Israel Law Center is bringing a class action lawsuit against Facebook for promoting anti-Semitic terrorism.
- Members of Congress introduced a resolution to label the atrocities committed by the Islamic State against Christians and other religious minorities “genocide.”
- The impact of the label is discussed by Robert George, Chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, who will speak at CLR’s Colloquium in Law and Religion this spring.
- In Ireland, where 90% of schools are Catholic and permitted to set their own admission procedure, non-baptized children struggle to find a school while schools seek to maintain religious identities in the face of plummeting numbers.
- A Michigan church is suing the Lansing Housing Commission over its policy that community rooms in public housing developments may not be used for religious worship but may be used for other activities.
- The leader of Spain’s socialist party has said that if he is elected in December, his government will ban religion courses in public as well as private schools.
- Nevada filed a motion to dismiss an ACLU lawsuit that could dismantle the state’s broad new school choice program, saying the program is neutral on religion even if parents can apply public funds to parochial schools.
- A Canadian judge orders Jehovah’s Witnesses to stop taking their granddaughter to religious services against the her mother’s wishes.
- The leader of France’s National Front is being tried for inciting racial hatred after comparing Muslim street prayers to the Nazi occupation.