Tag Archives: religious liberty

Sen. James Lankford finds DOE has begun to track employees’ religious views

Sen James Lankford finds DOE has begun to track employees religious views

Important Takeaways:

  • U.S. senator warns scheme ‘represents a grave violation of religious liberty as protected under the First Amendment’
  • In a day when the federal government sends grandmothers to jail for advocating for the lives of the unborn, insists it can coerce Christian companies to pay for abortion and promote an LGBT ideology that is out of mainstream, and more, a federal bureaucracy’s blast against religious freedom shouldn’t, perhaps, be a surprise.
  • It is the U.S. Department of Energy that has begun tracking employees’ beliefs through a plan to monitor employment accommodations.
  • And Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., is objecting.
  • He wrote Ann Dunkin, a DOE official, to “express my strong opposition to the Department of Energy’s recent notice regarding the establishment of a new system of records…”
  • He warned the agenda “represents a grave violation of religious liberty as protected under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
  • …its policy that requires the agency “to collect and store detailed information regarding requests for religious exemptions to various mandates,” the report said.
  • The DOE has claimed its accumulation of information about employees’ beliefs is needed to “collect, maintain, and disseminate records on employees and applicants for employment who seek and receive medical and non-medical accommodations.”
  • The report said Lankford has concerns that “collecting detailed records on an individual’s sincerely held religious beliefs and practices — alongside other personal and sensitive information — poses a significant threat to the privacy and religious freedoms of federal employees.”

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Poll shows in America not all systems of thought are welcomed as Christians face increasing intolerance

Matthew 5:10 ““Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Christians Face Increasing Intolerance? Poll Reveals Americans’ Stunning Take on Faith and Religious Liberty
  • According to Lifeway: nearly six-in-10 (59%) say religious tolerance for Christians in the U.S. is on the decline.
  • Notably, the majority of people in every religious group — Catholics (59%), Protestants (69%), and those of other religious beliefs (52%) — agree that Christians face ramped-up intolerance.
  • The survey results come as Christianity continues to decline, with the Pew Research Center finding that 63% of Americans identify as Christians, down from 78% in 2007.
  • At the same time, the growth of the “nones” — those individuals who are either atheist, agnostic, or unaffiliated — continues to swell, expanding from 16% in 2007 to 29% in 2021.

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In 6-3 vote Supreme Court rules that Maine School Tuition Program discriminates against children at faith-based schools

  • Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Parents’ Right to School Choice: ‘A Great Day for Religious Liberty in America’
  • The case, Carson v. Makin, was a challenge to the constitutionality of a program that pays for students to attend private schools in cases when they would have to commute long distances to reach the nearest public school.
  • Maine agreed to pay for those students to select any private school they wanted, as long as it wasn’t a religious school.
  • The nonprofit religious freedom law firms Institute for Justice and First Liberty Institute filed a lawsuit against the state on behalf of three families from small towns in Maine—Orrington, Glenburn, and Palermo.
  • According to Chief Justice John Roberts, “the Maine program, ‘effectively penalizes the free exercise’ of religion.'”
  • Justice Sotomayor said, today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.”
  • The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Tuesday that a Maine school tuition program discriminates against children at faith-based schools as well as “penalizes the free exercise” of religion.

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U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs appeal by official who opposed gay marriage

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a bid by a county clerk in Kentucky briefly jailed in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to two same-sex couples to avoid lawsuits they filed that accuse her of violating their constitutional rights.

The justices turned away an appeal by Kim Davis, who no longer serves as Rowan County Clerk, of a lower court ruling that allowed the lawsuits to proceed. But two conservative justices who voted in dissent against legalizing gay marriage in the court’s landmark 2015 ruling said in an opinion released as part of Monday’s action that the case, Obergefell v. Hodges, continues to have “ruinous consequences” for religious liberty.

“Davis may have been one of the first victims of this court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Samuel Alito.

Thomas said the Obergefell decision has left “those with religious objections in the lurch” and made it easier to label them as bigots “merely for refusing to alter their religious beliefs in the wake of prevailing orthodoxy.”

Both justices agreed with the decision to reject the Davis appeal for technical reasons.

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Davis could be sued in her individual capacity in her former role as county clerk. The 6th Circuit rejected her argument that she is protected by a legal doctrine known as qualified immunity, which can shield government officials from liability in certain cases.

Davis, who has earned praise from some conservative Christians, defended her actions by saying that she stopped issuing marriage licenses to everyone regardless of sexual orientation, and the plaintiffs could have obtained licenses elsewhere.

She was jailed for five days in the aftermath of the Obergefell decision for defying court orders to issue licenses in accordance with the high court’s ruling.

The couples – David Ermold and David Moore, and Will Smith and James Yates – sued Davis in 2015, accusing her of violating their constitutional right to marry as recognized in the Obergefell ruling for refusing to provide them marriage licenses. Both couples received their licenses while Davis was in jail.

The stance taken by Thomas and Alito, two of the court’s most conservative justices, comes as the Senate is moving forward quickly with the confirmation process for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, a favorite of Christian conservatives. With the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, only three of the justices who made up the court’s 5-4 majority in the Obergefell ruling still serve on the bench.

In the Obergefell ruling, the court found that the Constitution’s guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law meant states cannot ban same-sex marriages.

In recent years, a number of cases have arisen around the country testing the scope of the Obergefell decision, and the rights of those to object to gay marriage on religious grounds.

On Nov. 4, the justices are due to hear a major religious rights dispute involving the city of Philadelphia’s refusal to place children for foster care with a Catholic agency that bars same-sex couples from serving as foster parents.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Will Dunham)