Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- President Trump spoke with Evangelical Christian leaders at a White House dinner and sought their support in November’s midterm elections.
- In a revised set of regulations, the Chinese government suggests “strengthened thought education” for religious Communist Party members and encourages members to leave the Party if this education does not change their beliefs.
- A Muslim group, Diwan al-Dawla, claims it is not required to comply with Australian law in response to a judgment that its development of a rural property in New South Wales was illegal.
- A New Hampshire inn employee faces two counts of assault with hate crime enhancements after she allegedly told two Muslim patrons they were “not supposed to be here” and removed them from the establishment.
- After the Department of Housing and Urban Development filed a complaint against the company last week, Facebook removed 5,000 ad-targeting categories that allowed advertisers to exclude users based on ethnicity or religion, including categories such as “Buddhism” and “Islamic culture.”
- Sixteen states filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn a Sixth Circuit decision, which found that transgender bias is a form of sex discrimination under Title VII, seeking to reinstate the lower court’s decision to grant the employer a religious exemption under RFRA.
- A convicted 1993 World Trade Center bomber is suing the United States and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, claiming they violated his religious freedom by denying him meals comporting with his religious beliefs and refusing to provide regular access to an imam.
- Claiming religious-viewpoint discrimination, a local Southern Baptist Church filed a federal lawsuit against the town of Edisto Beach, South Carolina, after the town amended its civic center’s guidelines to ban rentals for “religious worship services.”