The mayor of New York said that he is not going to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision that the New York School System could ban Christian organizations from holding meetings in school buildings.
The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a lower court decision that said the school board could prohibit churches under the Establishment Clause. It was the third time the Court has sided with the city against churches.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said he will allow churches to continue to meet in public schools despite the ruling.
“The administration remains committed to ensuring that religious organizations are able to use space in city schools on the same terms provided to other groups,” said mayoral spokesman Wiley Norvell. “Now that litigation has concluded, the city will develop rules of the road that respect the rights of both religious groups and nonparticipants.”
“While we review and revise the rules, groups currently permitted to use schools for worship will continue to be able to worship on school premises under DOE guidelines,” he said.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, who represented the church in their case, said that while they welcome the Mayor’s decision, the rules need to be changed to allow equal access to all groups.
Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed the state’s “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” that protects Christians and other people of faith from having to be forced into actions that are violate their faith.
“Today I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because I support the freedom of religion for every Hoosier of every faith,” he said in a statement. “The Constitution of the United States and the Indiana Constitution both provide strong recognition of the freedom of religion but today, many people of faith feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action.”
The bill is a mirror of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The law says the government cannot burden someone’s exercise of religion without proving a compelling government interest.
Governor Pence said that while the federal law protects some freedoms, there are things on the state level that needed to be covered by a state law.
“Last year the Supreme Court of the United States upheld religious liberty in the Hobby Lobby case based on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but that act does not apply to individual states or local government action,” he said. “In order to ensure that religious liberty is fully protected under Indiana law, this year our General Assembly joined those 30 states [who have passed local legislation] and the federal government to enshrine these principles in Indiana law, and I fully support that action.”
Lower court justices who voted to deny Notre Dame’s religious rights will have to take a second look at their ruling after the U.S. Supreme Court threw out their decision.
The justices of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is being ordered to reconsider their decision in favor of the Obama Administration blocking Notre Dame’s request to have an exemption to the President’s signature health care law’s mandate of abortion causing drugs.
The Supreme Court said the 7th Circuit needed to take into account the court’s 2014 ruling in the Hobby Lobby case.
The Notre Dame case is the only appeals court decision that was issued prior to the Hobby Lobby ruling. In other cases, the judges have upheld the rights of the Christian organizations to not pay for abortion causing drugs.
The school said their rights were protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court asking them to hear the case involving a Mississippi law regarding admitting privileges for doctors who perform abortions.
The law passed the Mississippi legislature in 2012 that would require abortionists to have board certification and obtain hospital admitting privileges. The second part was aimed to allow women who are injured by the abortionist to be rushed to local hospitals for further treatment.
Supporters say the bill is aimed to protect the lives of the women who choose to have an abortion.
The state’s lone abortion center, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, immediately filed suit saying they would not be able to meet the law’s requirements. Eventually they said that the state did not have the right to pass laws that would close all abortion facilities in the state.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans struck down the law.
Mississippi Attorney General Hood says a similar law was upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, so the Supreme Court needs to weigh in to fix the conflict.
The administration of New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio is continuing a fight to keep Christians from being able to hold meetings in public schools as other taxpayers of the city are permitted to do.
The case of Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education has been in the court system for 17 years. The Board of Education refused to allow the group to meet inside a school saying that allowing a church to meet in school facilities was a violation of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court refused to hear the case. However, in 2012 a U.S. District Judge issued a permanent injunction allowing the group to hold services inside a school saying the school was violating the Free Exercise clause of the Constitution in their denial.
The city appealed that decision, getting the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to rule 2-1 that it was Constitutional to discriminate against Christian groups and other religions. That ruling is now before the Supreme Court.
“The department’s decision to make public schools available to religious organizations for a wide range of activities, but not for worship services or as a house of worship, is constitutional,” the city stated in a brief to the Supreme Court. “The policy does not prohibit, limit, or burden any religious practice; does not entangle the government in matters of religion; and does not impair petitioners’ ability to speak freely.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom is asking the court to uphold the Constitutional right for Christians to use the facilities like any other taxpayer.
“Churches meeting in New York City public schools for worship services have fed the poor and needy, assisted in rehabilitating drug addicts and gang members, helped rebuild marriages and families, and provided for the disabled,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The churches have also helped the public schools themselves by volunteering to paint the interiors of inner-city schools; donating computers, musical instruments, and air conditioners; and providing effective after-school programs to help all students with their studies.”
The Canadian Supreme Court is preparing to rule on the country’s ban on assisted suicide.
“Every one who … aids or abets a person to commit suicide, whether suicide ensues or not, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years,” states the Criminal Code of Canada.
The court is looking at the appeal of a ruling form the British Columbia Court of Appeals which overruled a lower court ruling approving euthanasia. A woman suffering from ALS who has died since the filing of the suit, claimed that denying her the right to have someone assist her in dying violated her rights and discriminates against the disabled.
“If the Supreme Court strikes down our laws against assisted suicide/euthanasia, then it will be up to parliament to come up with a new law,” said MP Maurice Vellacott. “If the Supreme Court of Canada strikes down Canada’s current laws on euthanasia or assisted suicide, then CPSO’s policy would mean Ontario’s physicians would have a ‘duty to refer’ patients for treatments intended to kill the patient.”
Two Canadian senators have introduced a bill that would remove any criminal penalties to doctors who help a patient end their lives. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has also crafted a policy that would require doctors to participate in the process regardless of their personal beliefs.
The Supreme Court is going to hear arguments in the case of a lawsuit brought by a small church against the town of Gilbert, Arizona.
The city has a law that prohibits the church from posting roadside signs.
The Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the Good News Presbyterian Church in the case. ADF Senior Web Writer Marissa Poulson said Monday that the signs are important.
“By stating the church’s signs are less valuable than political and other speech, the town is ignoring the church’s free speech rights and claiming to have the power to handicap, and even eliminate, speech it deems unimportant,” wrote Poulson.
The suit focuses on the fact that church signs are given restrictions that are not placed on other form of speech.
- Political signs can be up to 32 square feet, displayed for many months, and unlimited in number.
- Ideological signs can be up to 20 square feet, displayed indefinitely, and unlimited in number.
- Religious signs can only be 6 square feet, may be displayed for no more than 14 hours, and are limited to 4 per property.
The ADF says that if the government can use this law to restrict religious speech, there’s nothing to stop them from restricting other speech.
The Pakistani Supreme Court has ordered the arrest of two Muslim clerics that they say incited a mob to kill two Christians last month after they made false accusations of the couple desecrating the Koran.
In addition to the clerics, five police officials who failed to take action to protect the couple have also been arrested for their lack of action.
“Why they did not make an attempt to secure the couple as they could disperse the mob through aerial firing?” Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk asked. “It is because of the police’s negligence that the tragic incident occurred.”
In the incident last month, 28-year-old Shama Bibi and her husband Shahzah Masih, 32, were burnt in a kiln by a Muslim mob. The mob had been informed at a mosque that the couple has been found guilty of blasphemy against Islam.
It turned out that the Bibi had burned items that her late father-in-law used to perform black magic and his family was so upset they told the clerics she had burned a Koran to get the Muslims to kill her.
The police report that over 100 people have been arrested on at least one charge connected to the unlawful killing of the couple.
The Supreme Court is blocking Arizona from enforcing restrictions on medical abortions while a series of court challenges works through lower courts.
The ruling by the Court upheld a lower court ruling that blocked the rules regulating where women can take abortion-inducing drugs. Abortion-inducing drugs would also be prohibited after the 7th week of pregnancy instead of the current restriction of the 9th week.
The liberal-leaning 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the state of putting the restrictions in place while the legal challenges are taking place. North Dakota, Ohio and Texas have similar laws to Arizona.
Abortionist Planned Parenthood says that drug conducted abortions for more than 40 percent of abortions in their abortion centers.
The Arizona restrictions were put into place following the deaths of 8 women who had taken the drugs. The FDA claims there is no connection between the drugs and the deaths.
A bill to force all business owners in the District of Columbia to provide abortion coverage to employees regardless of their faith beliefs has been delayed.
The “Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act of 2014” was pulled on Tuesday afternoon. The bill was introduced in the wake of the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision that said the government could not force business owners to pay for abortion coverage.
“The council seems to have heard the voices warning them not to waste D.C. taxpayer dollars promoting the abortion lobby’s interests,” said Casey Mattox of the Alliance Defending Freedom. “There is simply no prospect that a court would uphold a bill forcing D.C. prolife non-profits to pay for abortions. The D.C. Council has wisely stepped back from the ledge and – for now – respected fundamental freedoms and avoided raiding taxpayers’ paychecks.”
Pro-abortion organizations had hailed the bill and the infringement on the religious freedom of business owners to advance abortion including NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Pro-life groups contacted the members of the city government to inform them that the bill would be a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.