Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- American Pastor Andrew Brunson was released from a Turkish prison and returned home to the U.S. after being detained on terrorism charges for two years.
- A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, alleging the government violated the Establishment Clause by providing millions of dollars in grants and transferring the care of unaccompanied immigrant minors to faith-based groups that refused to provide contraceptives or access to abortions.
- The Seventh Circuit held that a Wisconsin school district did not discriminate on the basis of religion by not providing busing to students attending a private Catholic school.
- Canton High School (MA) announces that it will break from its decades-long tradition of having a local minister deliver an invocation at the school’s graduation ceremony following a complaint from the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
- The Washington State Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penalty as unconstitutional because it had been “imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner.”
- Norway’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Christian doctor who was fired for refusing to distribute abortion-inducing drugs because it violated her religious beliefs.
- Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who was recently named in a Pennsylvania grand jury report accusing church leaders of covering up sexual abuse.
- A North Dakota man, allegedly high on methamphetamine, was arrested for criminal mischief and indecent exposure after stripping down, climbing into a holy water fountain, and masturbating in front of a group of worshipers at a Catholic church.
- An elderly couple in Virginia filed a complaint with HUD, alleging a violation of the Fair Housing Act after they were threatened with eviction from their retirement community for hosting a Bible study.
- Nonbelief Relief, a branch of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, filed a lawsuit against the IRS after its 501(c)(3), tax-exempt status was revoked for failing to file a required “information return” for three straight years.
- A rabbi is suing his age-restricted community under the Fair Housing Act and New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, claiming he was forbidden from building a sukkah on his property to observe Sukkot and not permitted to use a gate that would allow him and his handicapped sons easier passage to a relative’s home on the sabbath.
- To follow up from Thursday’s ATW: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison promises to enact legislation to strip private and religious schools of the right to expel students on the basis of the sexuality.