As leaders across the country continue to call for social distancing and implement restrictions on large gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19, some citizens have balked at the idea of interrupting their normal religious activities. But as long as restrictions on churches are non-discriminatory, experts say the restrictions are likely constitutional.
Three traditional-marriage organizations challenging the amendment to Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act are asking the Indiana Court of Appeals for relief, asserting they have standing to sue four cities that have enacted anti-discrimination ordinances.
After a settlement conference was unsuccessful, oral arguments have been rescheduled for Tuesday in the case involving the former teacher at Cathedral Catholic High School in Indianapolis who was fired for being in a same-sex marriage.
The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a dispute over a Philadelphia Catholic agency that won’t place foster children with same-sex couples, a big test of religious rights on a more conservative court.
A federal lawsuit alleging Brownsburg schools discriminated against a former teacher who refused to address transgender students by their chosen first names will continue with claims brought under Title VII, though 11 other state and federal constitutional claims against the school district were dismissed. The judge also cautioned both sides against efforts to expand the issues in the case to nonparty students.
Conservative religious groups are planning to appeal an Indiana judge’s ruling that canceled a trial challenging limits on the state’s religious objections law that were signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence.
Four Indiana cities sued for enacting anti-discrimination ordinances that opponents alleged violated religious rights laws have won summary judgment in a lawsuit challenging Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Nearly five years after Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act was signed into law, a lawsuit alleging subsequent amendments to the act infringe on religious rights went before a Hamilton County judge Thursday.
Conservative religious groups are arguing their constitutional rights were violated by limits that were placed on Indiana’s contentious religious objections law signed in 2015 by then-Gov. Mike Pence.
A second guidance counselor at an Indianapolis Catholic high school will lose her job because she’s in a same-sex marriage.
The Indiana Department of Correction must provide a Muslim inmate housed at the Indiana State Prison with a meat-based diet in accordance with his religious beliefs, a divided panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday in a decision upholding a lower court.
As they did in January 2018, supporters of hate crimes legislation rallied Tuesday in the Indiana Statehouse to again push lawmakers to add a bias-motivated crime statute to the Indiana law books. Advocates from a broad array of groups, including business, education, nonprofits and faith-based organizations, were on-hand to applaud and cheer as legislators and community leaders called for Indiana to join the 45 other states with hate crimes law.
An Amish couple with 13 children sued the federal government on Wednesday, accusing officials of violating their constitutional rights by insisting that they provide photographs of themselves before the Canadian wife’s request to become a permanent U.S. resident can be approved.
A Muslim man serving a life sentence in Terre Haute for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center wants a judge to determine that federal prison officials violated his religious rights by failing to provide meals strictly conforming to his beliefs and access to an imam of the same denomination.
A guidance counselor at an Indianapolis Catholic school could lose her job after administrators learned that she was married to a woman. The employee who worked for the school for 15 years and has been with her partner for 22 years says she has hired an attorney.
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a pot-smoking Indianapolis church that wants marijuana to be recognized as a sacrament. The 3-year-old suit filed by the First Church of Cannabis was dismissed Friday.
Indiana Republican Party activists overwhelmingly voted Saturday to reaffirm language first inserted in their platform when Vice President Mike Pence was governor that defines marriage as a union “between a man and a woman.”
Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma is the latest powerful GOP leader who doesn’t want to change the state Republican Party’s platform that favors “marriage between a man and a woman.”
Then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence faced a firestorm of criticism three years ago after signing a “religious freedom” law critics decried as anti-gay. Now, emails released this week illustrate similar backlash from fellow conservatives when the eventual vice president agreed to change the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the face of widespread boycott threats.
Officials in one of Indiana’s wealthiest cities are thumbing their noses at a new state law intended to curtail local governments’ authority to regulate short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, raising the possibility of a court fight.