Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- The Diocese of Brooklyn is paying out a $27.5 million settlement to four men who were sexually abused as children by a religion teacher paid by the diocese at St. Lucy’s-St. Patrick’s Church.
- A New Jersey town accused of discrimination against Orthodox Jews agreed not to enact an ordinance that would ban the building of religious boundaries made of white plastic piping.
- Parents of sexual abuse survivors filed a lawsuit Monday in Pittsburgh against Pennsylvania’s dioceses and their bishops, seeking disclosure of abuse allegation information.
- The Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs issued a directive instructing staff to take into account recent Supreme Court decisions, such as Masterpiece Cakeshop and Hobby Lobby, and Executive Orders that protect religious freedom.
- The European Court of Human Rights found that excluding a Belgian woman from the courtroom because she refused to remove her hijab violated Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
- Sikhs asked the Department of Education to consider their religion as an ethnic group for the purposes of Title VI.
- The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that Kaporos, a chicken-slaughtering ritual performed yearly leading up to Yom Kippur, is not a public health threat.
- The City of Pensacola filed a cert petition asking the Supreme Court to reverse the 11th Circuit’s decision that a cross in a public park violated the Establishment Clause.