Some interesting law and religion news stories from around the web this week:
- The Mississippi governor signed a gun rights bill allowing, among other things, churches to create security programs designating members to carry firearms to defend worshipers against violence.
- Switzerland has suspended the citizenship process for a Syrian Muslim family with two teenage brothers after the boys refused to shake hands with their female teachers for religious reasons.
- The 4th Circuit held that a Virginia school board’s policy barring a transgender boy, who had not undergone sex-reassignment surgery, from using the boy’s rest rooms at his school violates Title IX’s ban on discrimination on the basis of sex.
- A Michigan mosque has been sharing its space – for free – with a Unitarian Universalist Congregation while the congregation waits for its new church to be constructed.
- A resolution has been introduced to create a “National Day of Reason” as an alternative to the National Day of Prayer celebrated every May.
- The French government announced it will convene a summit of foreign ministers in Paris next month as a start to renewing the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
- The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been recognized as an official religion in New Zealand and officially conducted a state-sanctioned wedding.
- Israel said it has uncovered a new network of Jewish extremists in the West Bank that was responsible for several recent attacks against Palestinians.
- A Virginia federal district court dismissed free exercise and other constitutional challenges to the manner in which SSI benefits are computed. Plaintiff claimed that the rule requires her to live with her fiance before marriage, in violation of her religious beliefs, in order to avoid a reduction in benefits.
- Iran’s president criticized the use of 7,000 undercover morality police newly used in Tehran to report on young women who are not wearing a full Islamic hijab or those who play loud music in their cars.
- A university student was taken off a United States flight after another passenger heard him speaking Arabic and reported hearing what were perceived to be threatening comments.