Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- The Senate has confirmed President Trump’s nominee for deputy director of the White House Budget Office despite controversy over comments he made about Muslims in 2016.
- Jewish and Muslim leaders in Iceland have joined together in opposition to a proposed ban on male circumcision being considered in the Icelandic legislature.
- The City of New York has settled three separate suits brought by Muslim women who were forced to remove their hijabs in the presence of male police officers for booking purposes.
- A Hawaiian appellate court has ruled in favor of a lesbian couple who claimed that a Catholic bed-and-breakfast owner discriminated against them when she denied them a room because she said it conflicted with her religious beliefs.
- A German town council voted not to remove a church bell dating from 1935 that is inscribed with a Nazi slogan and Adolf Hitler’s name, although it will consider adding a plaque that places it in historical context.
- The head of the Michigan Catholic Conference has expressed concern about a newly-introduced bill in the state legislature that would retroactively extend the statute of limitations for certain claims of sexual abuse.
- Plaintiffs in a challenge to the third iteration of the Trump Administration’s travel ban have petitioned the Supreme Court for certiorari, and they specifically asked that the Court review the question of whether a prior-issued injunction against the ban should have included only those with a “bona fide” relationship with a U.S. person or entity.
- A Satanist church in Arizona is suing the Scottdale city council for refusing to allow a member of the church to deliver an invocation at a council meeting.
- A Mennonite woman who served on a Colorado death row inmate’s legal team has been jailed for refusing to answer questions about the legal team’s work; prosecutors had sought to have her testify to rebut claims by the inmate’s current defense team that the previous team was ineffective.
- An event of planned civil disobedience under the umbrella of the “Catholic Day of Action with Dreamers” resulted in the arrests of 40 people in Washington, D.C., including members of religious orders.
- A bill in Georgia’s state legislature would allow faith-based adoption services providers to refuse to provide services to homosexual couples.
- The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
