Religious Rights

A Christian law firm is declaring victory following a court hearing in Florida over whether a Christian organization should be allowed to distribute free Bibles on campus.

Liberty Counsel appeared in federal court, seeking an injunction to immediately allow World Changers to hand out Bibles to interested students in Collier County schools during non-instructional time. Liberty Counsel attorney Horatio Mihet tells OneNewsNow the school board displayed an amazing change of heart at the hearing.

"The Lord showed us great favor, and towards the end of the hearing the school board, I believe, saw the writing on the wall and did a complete about-face." Mihet reports that it "agreed that the distribution is constitutional and agreed to allow the Bibles to be distributed again in their schools"...

WASHINGTON - More than 100 leaders of religious groups are urging Congress to reject legislation that would prohibit them from hiring only fellow believers if they accept federal funds.

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says taxpayers shouldn't fund religious charities that discriminate against nonbelievers in hiring.

But officials from Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish groups argue that while they serve people of any religion, it's the shared faith of their employees that motivates and defines their mission...

(CNSNews.com) – Religious leaders warn that if an Aug. 6 ruling by a federal judge on same-sex marriage is upheld, it could wind up putting a gag on Christians speaking out about homosexuality – a gag that a top Southern Baptist leader says his denomination will not accept.

In a 136-page decision barring California’s Proposition 8, which limited marriage to one man and one woman, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker found that “Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians.”

Mathew Staver, dean of the Liberty University Law School and chairman of the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, said Walker's finding is shocking, and, if upheld, would have ominous implications for Christians wanting to present the Bible’s position on homosexuality...

(CNSNews.com) – A professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), who was purportedly accused of “hate speech” and relieved of his teaching duties for teaching Catholic doctrine on homosexuality in his introductory class on Catholicism, will be allowed to teach the class again this fall.

In a letter last week, University of Illlinois Deputy Counsel Steven Veazie told the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) that the university will be contacting Dr. Kenneth Howell to offer him the opportunity to teach Religion 127, Introduction to Catholicism, as a visiting instructor for the fall semester.

“The University has corrected, for the time being, its academic freedom violation by not just suspending the decision to terminate him, but by bringing him back to the classroom,” ADF senior counsel David French told CNSNews.com. “It’s a huge win for academic freedom"...

An attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) is describing the ruling in a case at Eastern Michigan University, which is challenging a Christian's rights to maintain her beliefs, as "open season on Christians." A federal court has ruled in the university's favor, but that decision is being appealed.

Jordan Lorence, senior counsel with ADF, is disappointed by the federal judge's decision because, as he says, "it basically has no respect for the right of conscience of Christians or other people who have sincere beliefs about the proper definition of marriage and whether certain sexual behaviors can be immoral"....

A federal judge has ruled in favor of a public university that removed a Christian student from its graduate program in school counseling over her belief that homosexuality is morally wrong. Monday's ruling, according to Julea Ward's attorneys, could result in Christian students across the country being expelled from public university for similar views.

“It’s a very dangerous precedent,” Jeremy Tedesco, legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, told FOX News Radio. “The ruling doesn’t say that explicitly, but that’s what is going to happen.”

U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh dismissed Ward’s lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University. She was removed from the school’s counseling program last year because she refused to counsel homosexual clients....

WASHINGTON - A leading congressional advocate for religious freedom says the Obama administration has failed to speak out against growing persecution abroad.

In a House floor speech, Republican Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia cited apparent U.S. indifference to violations of human rghts in Sudan, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Egypt and Morocco.

He said Iraq's ancient Christian community faces extinction unless the government protects churches and prevents attacks that have driven hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians into exile....

A former bus driver has sued his employer for allegedly discriminating against his religious beliefs and terminating his employment.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) represents Edwin Graning, a former driver for the Capital Area Rural Transportation System (CARTS), which is a nine-county transit service that often provides transportation in rural areas surrounding Austin, Texas. Senior attorney EdwardEdward White (ACLJ) White tells OneNewsNow the driver was dispatched in January to transport two women to a Planned Parenthood clinic.

"He called up his supervisor and said, 'You know, I'm an ordained minister...and Planned Parenthood does abortions. And I don't know if this lady's going there for an abortion. However, if she is, I want nothing to do with that,'" White accounts. "And so in effect, he was asking for his supervisor to just get one of the other CARTS drivers to pick up this woman"...

Arizona school children are told they can't pray in front of the Supreme Court building ... Two University of Texas Arlington employees are fired for praying over a co-worker's cubicle after work hours ... In Cranston, R.I., a high school banner causes controversy when a parent complains it contains a prayer and demands that it be removed.

There are more legal challenges to prayer in the United States than ever before, says Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an atheist organization whose business is booming as Americans increasingly tackle church vs. state issues.

"We've never had more complaints about government prayer," Gaylor says. "We have just hired a second staff attorney in July.  read more »

A federal appeals court has issued a ruling that a Christian attorney says represents a major setback for churches and other religious institutions.

According to Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University's School of Law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) has been a great tool for churches, giving equal treatment to them and other houses of worship.

"There have been attempts to literally zone churches out of the community, and even outside of the city limits," he reports. "This RLUIPA law has been a great blessing to many houses of worship and has put a stop to some of those discriminatory practices"...