Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- At least 207 people died and up to 450 others were wounded on Easter Sunday in a series of eight bombings targeting Christian churches and hotels in three cities in Sri Lanka.
- Related: Pope Francis denounced the “cruel violence” of the Easter Sunday slaughter of Christians and foreigners in Sri Lanka.
- Related: President Trump, Speaker Pelosi, and several other U.S. politicians expressed their condolences and condemned the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka.
- Related: Yousef al-Othaimeen, Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, condemned the “cowardly” Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka.
- A twenty-three-year-old man was arrested in Rabat, Morocco, for planning to detonate explosives during Holy Week processions in Seville, Spain.
- An arson fire was set at the Torat Chaim Yeshiva in eastern Moscow, Russia, on the eve of Passover.
- A man was arrested and charged with attempted arson and reckless endangerment after entering St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City carrying gasoline canisters, lighter fluid, and lighters.
- President Trump spoke with Pope Francis and pledged to assist with the rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France.
- The D.C. Circuit ruled that the U.S. House of Representatives’ chaplain may reject a self-declared atheist’s request to serve as a guest chaplain and deliver secular prayers in the House chamber.
- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom expressed concerns about the politicization of religion during Indonesia’s recent general elections—specifically, the use of the country’s blasphemy law to attack candidates for their religious beliefs.
- Chinese authorities abducted an underground Catholic priest who refused to join China’s state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the governing body of the Chinese Catholic Church.
- U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) claims she has experienced an uptick in death threats after President Trump criticized remarks she made to a California chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, describing 9/11 as an event where “some people did something.”
- U.S. Ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher has been accused of offending the mostly Roman Catholic country after she wished Jews a happy Passover in Polish on Friday.
- The city of Ozark (MO) relocated a large metal cross-shaped structure from city property to private land owned by the Christian County Agricultural and Mechanical Society in response to a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
- A new Gallup report found that only half of Americans report belonging to a church, synagogue, or mosque, down from seventy percent in 1999.
- The San Antonio City Council (TX) rejected a proposal to reconsider its decision to ban Chick-fil-A from opening a location in the city’s airport, which stemmed from concerns over the chicken franchise’s stance on LGBT issues.
- Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who is openly gay, has been offered an opportunity to speak at an upcoming event for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT lobbying group.
- For the first time in its history, the Detroit (MI) school district will observe the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr.
- The board of a school district in Ohio that refused to recognize a student-led Bible study and a Christian encouragement club has reversed course and voted to permit the clubs to resume meetings on school property.
- St. Thomas Health, operating St. Thomas Hospital in Rutherford (MA), will pay $75,000 to settle a religious discrimination lawsuit brought by the EEOC after the hospital fired an employee for refusing a flu shot because of his religious beliefs.
- The Montana Human Rights Bureau determined that the state’s Department of Corrections discriminated against an inmate on the basis of religion after the inmate was denied a Jehovah’s Witness bible and chapel access.
- The ACLU Foundation of Virginia filed a lawsuit against the Town of Richlands (VA), claiming licensing and zoning laws that prohibit Tarot card reading as part of a local store owner’s business constitute viewpoint discrimination and abridge his right to free exercise of religion.
- Agudath Israel in America, a Manhattan-based organization that advocates for the rights of Orthodox Jews, has accused Jackson Township (NJ) of destroying documents relevant to an ongoing RLUIPA lawsuit filed against the town in 2017.
- A volunteer with No More Deaths, a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson (AZ), will argue at trial that RFRA protects his actions of harboring undocumented immigrants because his humanitarian assistance is motivated by his religious beliefs.
- Pope Francis offered prayers for abused minors during Stations of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum on Good Friday.
- The Archdiocese of Los Angeles (CA) has agreed to pay $8 million to a teenage girl who was sexually abused by the athletic director of her Catholic high school.
- The District of Columbia’s Attorney General is investigating the preschool at Washington Hebrew Congregation after several parents filed a civil lawsuit against the school claiming their children were sexually abused by a teacher there.
- Police in Ventnor (NJ) charged a forty-five-year-old man with criminal mischief for damaging a menorah outside of the Chabad at the Shore synagogue on the eve of Passover.
- An Orthodox Jewish Rabbi who reported vandalism of his synagogue to police was ordered to pay over $6,000 to one of the alleged vandals after prosecutors dismissed the charges for lack of evidence.
- A pro-life, faith-based pregnancy care center filed a lawsuit against the city of Hartford (CT), claiming an ordinance that mandates pregnancy resource centers to make particular disclosures violates the First Amendment.
- Oklahoma lawmakers have passed a bill requiring physicians to notify women that a drug-induced abortion procedure can be reversed.
- A federal judge blocked part of an Ohio law that bans the abortion method of dilation and evacuation, the most common second-trimester abortion procedure.
- North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) vetoed a “born-alive” measure, which would require health care practitioners to grant infants born alive during late term abortions the same protections as other patients.
- Pro-life activists say a noise ordinance proposed by the Charlotte City Council (NC) that would create buffer zones around medical facilities, houses of worship, and schools, within which amplified sounds are prohibited, infringes on their free speech rights.
- An anti-abortion protestor suffered a broken leg while protesting outside an abortion clinic in Louisville (KY) after she was thrown to the ground by a woman exiting the clinic.
- Mississippi’s Attorney General filed papers defending the state’s new law that bans most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected.
- Utah’s Attorney General announced that the state will delay the implementation of a new law that bans most abortions after 18 weeks of pregnancy, pending the outcome of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.
- At a recent town hall, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders voiced his support for unrestricted abortion access up until the moment of birth.
- Florida’s House of Representatives passed a bill that would require parental consent for minors that wish to have abortions.
- Data published by the U.K.’s Office for National Studies shows that in 2017, nearly one-third of pregnancies among women between the ages of twenty and twenty-four in England and Wales resulted in abortions.
Many readers of this blog will know of the famous disagreement between Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Story on whether Christianity formed part of the common law. Jefferson, unsurprisingly, thought the answer was “no.” How he came to that conclusion is perhaps revealed in a new edition of his legal notes,