Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- New York’s Attorney General Letitia James, joined by 23 other states and cities, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulation that would expand the protection of conscience rights of health care providers.
- The Third Circuit heard oral arguments in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. President of the United States, where the Little Sisters of the Poor intervened to support the Trump administration’s expansion of exemptions from the Affordable Care Act contraceptive mandate.
- Responding to the expansion of religious and moral exemptions for health care professionals, the House of Representatives passed a bill dubbed the “Equality Act” that broadens the definition of a protected class to include gender identity, sexual orientation, and sex.
- The Office of Personnel Management adopted new rules last month that standardizes and clarifies how federal workers may earn and use religious compensatory time to take time off for religious observances.
- The Supreme Court denied review of the Sixth Circuit’s denial of relief to Amir Shabo, a native Iraqi Chaldean Christian currently living in the U.S. who requested asylum under the Convention Against Torture.
- A Jewish millionaire claims a British family court discriminated against him because of his religious beliefs, arguing that an imposed financial sanction until he presents his wife a “Get” – a document officially terminating a marriage under Jewish law – would invalidate the Get under religious law and trap him in the marriage indefinitely.
- Representatives Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and André Carson coordinated with the nonprofit Muslim Advocates to organize Capitol Hill’s invitation-only iftar – the meal that breaks the fast at sundown each day during the holy month of Ramadan.