Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- For the second time in twelve months, vandals left anti-Semitic symbols on a New Jersey synagogue’s property.
- Opinion: Cardinal Timothy Dolan says that the Democratic Party has abandoned orthodox Catholics in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.
- The Ohio legislature is considering a bill that would ban abortions for any reason, including in cases of rape and danger to a woman’s life.
- The newly-passed spending bill leaves intact the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits tax-exempt organizations like churches from endorsing political candidates.
- The Arizona Supreme Court left in place plans for a referendum on a state proposal to give all parents of school-age children the option of using vouchers to send their children to private schools.
- A Republican U.S. senator praised the Navy for rejecting the chaplaincy application of a secular humanist, saying atheism is incompatible with the religious role of military chaplains.
- The 7th Circuit seemed to apply both the endorsement and coercion tests in rejecting a challenge to an Indiana public school’s “Christmas Spectacular.”
- Three Kansas men are accused of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction for allegedly planning to use truck bombs to blow up an apartment complex housing Somali immigrants.