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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • The Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari in Missouri Department of Corrections v. Finney, a case in which a Missouri state appellate court upheld a trial court’s striking of three potential jurors who were disqualified because of their religious belief that homosexuality is a sin. The underlying suit against the Department of Corrections involved sex discrimination and hostile work environment claims by a lesbian employee.
  •  In United States v. Rourke, the 9th Circuit held that it was “plain error” for a district court to impose a condition to a defendant’s supervised release that the defendant live at and participate in a 12-step rehabilitation program, which asks the participant to call on a spiritual power to overcome addiction problems. The court found that without a non-religious alternative, the supervised release violates the Establishment Clause.
  • In Prodan v. Legacy Health, a federal district court in Oregon found that two former health care workers who challenged their employer’s denial of a request for a religious exemption from a Covid vaccine requirement made out a prima facie case of religious discrimination in the workplace under Title VII.
  • In Annunciation House, Inc. v. Paxton, a Catholic agency serving migrants and refugees in Texas filed suit against the Texas Attorney General, arguing that his demand for certain records violated the agency’s religious freedom. A Texas state court granted a TRO barring the Attorney General from examining the records.
  • In Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee signed a bill which says, in relevant part, “[a] person shall not be required to solemnize a marriage.” The original bill would have allowed refusals by those who objected to the solemnization on religious belief.
  • The Utah legislature passed a bill that prohibits the government from imposing substantial burdens on the free exercise of religion unless it can show that it had a compelling interest to do so, and it used the least restrictive means to further that interest.
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  •  In Kristofersdottir v. CVS Health Corp., a nurse-practitioner filed a complaint in the Southern District of Florida alleging that CVS revoked all religious accommodations that allowed employees to refuse to prescribe contraceptives, which is the accommodation plaintiff had for over 7 years. 
  • In Dad’s Place of Bryan, Ohio v. City of Bryan, a Christian church filed suit in the Northern District of Ohio, alleging that the city has violated the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses, as well as RLUIPA, by charging the church’s pastor with 18 criminal counts for allowing homeless persons to reside on the property for an extended amount of time in violation of city zoning rules.
  • In Uzomechina v. Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, the District of New Jersey dismissed racial discrimination and wrongful discharge claims brought by a priest who was fired after he was allegedly falsely accused of financial and sexual misconduct. However, the court allowed the priest’s defamation claim, which he alleges that the Diocese passed on false information about him to his subsequent employer, to proceed.
  •  In Carter v. Virginia Real Estate Board,  a Virginia trial court held unconstitutional a portion of Virginia’s Fair Housing Law that said: “use of words or symbols associated with a particular religion . . . shall be prima facie evidence of an illegal preference under this chapter that shall not be overcome by a general disclaimer.” A realtor included references to Jesus and a Bible verse in her email signature and was investigated, but the court invalidated the statute, saying the presumption of animus was unconstitutional.
  • A Michigan hospital agreed to pay a $50,000 settlement in a Title VII discrimination lawsuit alleging that the hospital had refused to hire an employee who had objected on religious grounds to receiving a flu shot. The settlement prohibits the hospital from refusing to hire applicants because of their sincerely held religious beliefs opposing such a vaccine mandate.
  • In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the Ram Mandir, a Hindu Temple located on a contested holy site once home to a 16th-century mosque. Critics allege that the temple represents an effort by Modi to elevate the Hindu religion in India’s public life.
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In In re Parks v. Commissioner of Labor, the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court upheld the denial of unemployment compensation to a medical center security guard who was terminated for refusing to comply with a Covid vaccine mandate. The court ruled that the state mandate did not allow for a religious exemption, and the security guard’s religious beliefs did not excuse compliance with a valid, religion-neutral law of general applicability. The court held that when employment is terminated due to noncompliance with such a law, even when the motives for noncompliance are religious in nature, the First Amendment does not prevent the denial of unemployment insurance benefits if the mandate has a “rational public-health basis” and is justified by a compelling government interest.
  • New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a new initiative allowing mosques to broadcast the call to prayer on Fridays and during Ramadan without requiring a permit. The initiative comes with new legal guidance from the NYPD, emphasizing that the call to prayer is permitted in the city despite sound restrictions in neighborhoods. Mosques can now broadcast the call to prayer on Fridays from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM and during the sunset prayers throughout Ramadan, with collaborative efforts between the NYPD Community Affairs Bureau and Muslim faith leaders to ensure compliance with noise regulations.
  • In Rutan-Ram v. Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, the Court of Appeals of Tennessee reversed the decision of a trial court that held a Jewish couple did not have standing to sue the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. The couple sued because they were denied foster training by a state-subsidized child-placement agency because they did not share the agency’s religious beliefs. The court held that there was an injury in fact because the Tennessee statute that protected faith-based agencies from providing services to those that did not share their belief made it more difficult for members of one group to obtain services.
  • In Lax v. City University of New York, the New York Kings County Supreme Court allowed five Orthodox Jewish faculty members at Kingsborough Community College to proceed with their religious hostile work environment and retaliation claims against the school. The Jewish faculty members allege that they have been subjected to pervasive discrimination by another faculty group called the Progressive Faculty Caucus (PFC). 
  • The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in a case regarding whether, consistent with the Second Amendment, the government may prohibit firearm possession by a person with a domestic violence restraining order. The brief states that the bishops support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer.
  • Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia all signed an amicus brief supporting certiorari in a case challenging a New York law that bars counseling within a hundred feet of an abortion clinic, including on public sidewalks. The Second Circuit upheld the law based on Hill v. Colorado (2000).
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In We the Patriots USA, Inc. v. Connecticut Office of Early Childhood Development, the 2d Circuit upheld the constitutionality of Connecticut’s decision to repeal religious exemptions from its mandatory vaccination laws, while still permitting medical exemptions. The court found that the act was neutral under Smith and thus dismissed plaintiffs’ challenges.
  • In Sims v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, the 11th Circuit found that in a suit where a Muslim inmate argued that he was denied an exemption from a Florida prison’s grooming rules requiring beards be no longer than half an inch, the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s requirement that inmates exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit only required him to exhaust the prison system’s grievance process. The Department of Corrections argued that the PLRA required inmates to file a rule change petition before filing suit.
  • In Huntsman v. Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the 9th Circuit reversed dismissal of a suit brought by a former member of the LDS Church who alleged fraud on part of the church after he contributed $2.6 million in tithes to the church. The court rejected the Church’s argument that the suit was precluded by the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine.
  • In Carter v. Transport Workers of America, Local 556, the Northern District of Texas ordered sanctions against Southwest Airlines for failing to comply with a prior order that found Southwest violated Title VII by terminating a flight attendant for posting her religiously-motivated views of abortion on her social media. The court also ordered Southwest’s attorneys to attend at least 8 hours of religious liberty training.
  • In Burke v. Walsh, a Catholic couple filed suit against a foster care agency in the District of Massachusetts. The couple brought free speech and free exercise challenges because the agency denied them a foster care license because they “would not be affirming to a child who identified as LGBTQIA.”
  •  In Doe No. 1 v. Bethel Local School District Board of Education, the Southern District of Ohio dismissed a suit brought by Muslim and Christian plaintiffs alleging free exercise, due process, and equal protection challenges to a school board’s policy allowing students to use the bathroom of their gender identity.
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the United States Supreme Court held 6-3 that the 1st Amendment’s free speech clause prohibit Colorado from requiring that a website designer create websites for same-sex weddings contrary to her religious beliefs.
  • In Groff v. DeJoy, a religious accommodation case under Title VII, a unanimous Supreme Court clarified that “undue hardship” exists where “‘a burden is substantial in the overall context of an employer’s business.'”
  • In Fox v. Washington, the 6th Circuit held that the Michigan Department of Corrections must recognize “Christian Identity” as a religion for purposes of the Michigan prison system.
  • In Goldstein v. Hochul, a federal court in New York refused to issue a preliminary injunction in a challenge to New York’s 2022 Concealed Carry Improvement Act, which bans carrying firearms in “any place of worship or religious observation.”  The suit was filed by an Orthodox Jewish congregation, its president, and Jewish residents of New York who say that they have carried handguns for self-defense in synagogues.
  • In Doe v. Alpine School District, a federal court in Utah rejected claims by parents of a high school student that the school’s practice of giving students long periods of unsupervised time, during which the student had premarital sex with his girlfriend, violated their religious free exercise rights. The court found that although premarital sex is against the parents’ religious beliefs, the school did not coerce the student into violating the parents’ religious beliefs.
  • In Alulddin v. Alfartousi, an Arizona state appeals court held that civil courts can enforce an Islamic marriage contract’s dowry provision. The court found that in deciding the dowry provision was a valid premarital agreement, it did not violate the 1st Amendment’s free exercise clause.
  • In Foundation for the Advancement of Catholic Schools, Inc. v. The Most Reverend Leonard P. Blair, a Connecticut trial court held that “the constitutional bar on court jurisdiction over religious matters” required it to abstain from a suit over whether the Archbishop could appoint Board of Trustee members other than those recommended by the Governance Committee.
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Corp., the Seventh Circuit rejected a school teacher’s Title VII challenge after she was fired because she refused, on religious grounds, to comply with the school’s policy of calling transgender students by their names registered in the school’s official database.
  • An Arizona federal district court held a hearing in Arizona Christian University v. Washington Elementary School District. The university alleges that by terminating a student-teaching partnership between the university and the school district because of the university’s asserted religious beliefs, the school district violated the university students’ free exercise rights.
  • In Bolonchuk v. Cherry Creek Nursing Center/ Nexion Health, a federal magistrate judge in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado recommended dismissal of a suit brought by a former nursing home healthcare employee who was terminated after she refused on religious grounds to comply with her employer’s Covid vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. The court found that the employer did not violate the employee’s First Amendment rights because it was not a state actor
  • In Hilo Bay Marina, LLC v. State of Hawaii, a Hawaii trial court found that a deed restriction requiring land to be used solely for church purposes did not violate the Establishment Clause, applying the Supreme Court’s “historical practices and understandings” test from Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.
  • In Montgomery v. St. John’s United Church of Christ, the plaintiffs’ claims that they were sexually harassed by the lay leader of the church and subsequently terminated because they resisted the conduct was dismissed by an Ohio state appellate court. The court dismissed the plaintiffs’ hostile work environment claims because of the ministerial exception, which exempts religious institutions from federal employment discrimination laws.
  • in Carrollton First United Methodist Church, Inc. v. Trustees of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, Inc., 185 Methodist churches filed suit in a Georgia state trial court against their parent body in an attempt to expedite their disaffiliation process amid an intra-faith dispute over same-sex marriage. The lawsuit alleges that the parent body is attempting to slow disaffiliation procedures so as to prevent disaffiliating congregations from keeping their real and personal property.
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Company, the Sixth Circuit held that a first amendment free-exercise claim could not be made by employees working for a federal contractor. The employees were denied a religious exemption from a Covid vaccine mandate but, because they were working for a federal contractor and not for the government itself, the court found that constitutional guarantees did not apply to them.
  • In Wrigley v. Romanick, the North Dakota Supreme Court declined to vacate a trial court’s preliminary injunction that barred enforcement of the state’s 2007 abortion ban, which went into effect when the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade last year. The court determined that a critical defect in the abortion ban was the absence of an exception for preserving the health of the mother.
  • Six Jewish parents and two Orthodox Jewish day schools filed a law suit in a California federal district court challenging the exclusion of sectarian schools from receiving funds made available to California user the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The complaint in Loffman v. California Department of Education alleges that the plaintiffs are entitled to equal treatment and should be afforded a portion of the generally available public funding necessary to provide education to students with disabilities.
  • A Christian preschool and the church that sponsors it filed a law suit in a Connecticut federal district court, challenging the removal of religious exemptions from Connecticuts’s statute requiring various vaccinations for preschool children. The complaint in Milford Christian Church v. Russell-Tucker alleges that the requirement violates free exercise, free speech, freedom of association, equal protection, and child rearing rights.
  • The governor of Utah signed HB467, which requires that all abortions performed after January 1, 2024 be performed in hospitals rather than abortion clinics. It goes on to create an exception for rape, incest, and for pregnant females under the age of 14. However, all these abortions are only allowed to be performed before 18 weeks of pregnancy. 
  • The article, Faith After the Pandemic: How COVID-19 Changed American Religion, published on the Survey Center on American Life website, discusses the post-Covid increase in the number of individuals identifying as religiously unaffiliated.
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Tingley v. Ferguson, the Ninth Circuit denied an en banc rehearing for challenges of free speech, free exercise, and vagueness to Washington State’s ban on conversion therapy on minors. The case was originally heard by a 3-judge panel, which upheld the ban.
  • In Gardner-Alfred v. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Southern District of New York held that two former employees could bring suit against the Bank for violations of Title VII, RFRA, and the Free Exercise Clause. The basis of the claims come from the Bank’s denial of a religious exemption from the Bank’s COVID vaccine mandate.
  • In L.B. ex rel Booth v. Simpson Cty. Sch. Dist., filed in the Southern District of Mississippi, a school district abandoned a policy that prohibited students from wearing masks with political or religious messages. The parties settled, and the school district will now permit the student to wear a mask that reads “Jesus Loves Me.”
  • In Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop, the Colorado Court of Appeals issued a ruling on January 26, 2023, stating that the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act did not infringe on Jack Phillips’ free exercise of religion (Phillips was the claimant in the different Masterpiece Cakeshop case decided by the Supreme Court in 2018). This case arose out of Phillips’ refusal to create a cake that celebrated and symbolized a gender transition because it would contravene his religious beliefs.
  • Indiana Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Members of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana v. Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, Inc. on January 19, 2023. The oral arguments dealt with a challenge to the state’s pro-life law, which prohibits abortion except in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomalies, or when the woman’s life is at risk. Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief on behalf of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference defending the law.
  • Alabama Governor Kay Ivey issued Executive Order No. 733 on January 20, 2023, which requires a state executive-branch agency to enforce the Alabama Religious Freedom Amendment to the greatest extent practicable. For example, the order requires executive branch agencies to consider possible burdens on religious exercise when adopting administrative rules, and also to allow state employees to express their religious beliefs in the same manner as they would express non-religious views.  
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Fellowship of Christian Athletes v. San Jose Unified School District, the Ninth Circuit vacated its August 2022 decision which had found for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and ordered that the case be reheard en banc. In this case, the school had revoked the status of a Christian student group because the school objected to a policy that allegedly discriminated against LGBTQ students.
  • In Firewalker-Fields v. Lee, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a Muslim inmate’s First Amendment Free Exercise claim. The court wrote that the jail’s policy of not allowing the plaintiff access to Friday Islamic prayers was reasonably related to security and resource allocation.
  • Thirteen Christian and Jewish leaders filed for a permanent injunction in the Missouri Circuit Court in Blackmon v. State of Missouri. The complaint seeks to bar the State of Missouri from enforcing its abortion ban, claiming that the ban violates the Missouri Constitution by failing to protect the free exercise of religion.
  • In Ference v Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, a federal magistrate judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania recommended denying a motion to dismiss filed by the Catholic Diocese in response to a Title VII sex-discrimination lawsuit. The lawsuit was made by a Lutheran sixth-grade teacher in a Catholic school who was fired shortly after being hired when the school discovered that he was in a same-sex marriage.
  • A nurse practitioner filed suit in a Texas federal district court after being fired for refusing to prescribe contraceptives. The complaint in Strader v. CVS Health Corp alleges that CVS’s firing amounted to religious discrimination in violation of Title VII.
  • On January 11, 2023, the US House of Representatives passed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. This bill states that any infant born alive after an attempted abortion is a “legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States.” Doctors would be required to care for those infants as they would any other child who was born alive.
  • Dr. Erika Lopez Prater, an art professor at Hamline University, is suing the University for religious discrimination and defamation after she was fired for showing an image of Muhammad to her Islamic art class.
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Groff v. DeJoy, the United States Supreme Court will review a Christian mail carrier’s lawsuit alleging the United States Postal Service did not accommodate his religious objection request to delivering packages on Sundays. The Third Circuit held in October 2022 that Groff’s accommodation would cause undue hardship to USPS. 
  • In Hunter v. U.S. Dept. of Education, an Oregon federal district court dismissed a class-action suit by more than forty students who claimed that the Department of Education failed to protect LGBTQ+ students from discrimination at religious schools. The court wrote that exempting religious schools from Title IX to avoid interfering with their convictions is “substantially related to the government’s objective of accommodating religious exercise.”
  • In Hammons v. University of Maryland Medical System Corp., a Maryland federal district held that a hospital’s refusal to perform a procedure to treat the plaintiff’s gender dysphoria was sex discrimination in violation of the Affordable Care Act’s discrimination ban. The University of Maryland-owned hospital was originally a Catholic hospital, and its purchase required the University to abide by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Services promulgated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
  • In Planned Parenthood South Atlantic v. State of South Carolina, the South Carolina Supreme Court held that the state’s Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act violates a woman’s right to privacy protected by the South Carolina Constitution. The opinion stated that “[the] Act, which severely limits—and in many instances completely forecloses—abortion, is an unreasonable restriction upon a woman’s right to privacy and is therefore unconstitutional.”
  • The Hamtramck, Michigan City Council amended the city’s Animal Ordinance to permit animal sacrifices on residential property subject to certain permits and guidelines. Hamtramck has a large Muslim population, and animal sacrifice is a traditional component of Eid al-Adha.
  • Per a French court order, the town of La Flotte, France, must remove a statue of the Virgin Mary that stands at a crossroads in the small municipality. Citing a 1905 French law that forbids all religious monuments in public spaces, the court noted that, while town officials had not intended any expression of religious support, “the Virgin Mary is an important figure in Christian religion,” which gives the statue “an inherently religious character.”