The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis, finding the church-autonomy doctrine prohibits the state from interfering in the Catholic Church’s dispute with a high school teacher who claimed he was fired for being in a same-sex marriage.
For decades, Indiana GOP lawmakers have promised their constituents that, given the chance, they would ban abortion. But in the first week of a special session, the legislators are learning that saying what they are going to do is easier than actually doing it.
A Lawrence County man tried to defend himself against child abuse charges by asserting his right to religious freedom, but the Court of Appeals of Indiana found the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act did not apply in his case because the prosecution demonstrated it had chosen the least restrictive means to advance the state’s compelling interest in protecting children.
A southern Indiana couple facing both criminal charges and the termination of their parental rights due to allegations of unreasonable discipline against their children are seeking to use Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act to end, or at least pause, the litigation against them.
A Republican who’s been one of the Indiana Legislature’s most conservative members announced Friday he won’t seek re-election next year, ending more than three decades as a lawmaker.
Lynn Starkey, the Roncalli High School counselor who was fired for being in a same-sex marriage, is planning to appeal Wednesday’s ruling in federal court that found the ministerial exception barred her discrimination claims.
Roncalli High School has won a victory in its legal battle with a former guidance counselor who raised discrimination claims after she was fired for being in a same-sex marriage. A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the counselor’s claims against the Indianapolis Catholic high school are barred by the First Amendment’s ministerial exception.
The Supreme Court on Friday declined to take up the case of a florist who refused to provide services for a same-sex wedding, leaving in place a decision that she broke state anti-discrimination laws.
In a one-page order, Marion Superior Special Judge Lance Hamner did what a previous special judge and the Indiana Supreme Court had not done – dismiss the wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a gay teacher against the archdiocese of Indianapolis.
The Supreme Court is reviving a lawsuit brought by a Georgia college student who sued school officials after being prevented from distributing Christian literature on campus. Chief Justice John Roberts was the lone dissenter, lamenting that the ruling risked “turning judges into advice columnists.”
A sweeping bill that would extend federal civil rights protections to LGBTQ people is a top priority of President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress. Yet as the Equality Act heads to the Senate after winning House approval, its prospects seem bleak — to a large extent because of opposition from conservative religious leaders.
A four-member Indiana Supreme Court denied a petition Thursday filed by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis to stop the lawsuit brought by a social studies teacher who was fired from Cathedral High School for being in a same-sex marriage.
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled that Muslim men who were placed on the government’s no-fly list because they refused to serve as FBI informants can seek to hold federal agents financially liable. The ruling was one of several unanimous decisions the high court issued Thursday.
The United States Supreme Court, already poised to take a significant turn to the right, opened its new term Monday with a jolt from two conservative justices who raised new criticism of the court’s embrace of same-sex marriage.
A lawsuit challenging Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act will not proceed, for now, after the Indiana Court of Appeals declined to reverse summary judgment for four cities with nondiscrimination ordinances. The appellate panel found that the conservative organizations challenging the RFRA “fix” lacked standing to challenge the ordinances on free speech and religious exercise grounds.
Claiming the judiciary cannot interfere with church matters, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Indiana Attorney General have entered the fight between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis and a teacher who was dismissed from Cathedral High School in Indianapolis for being in a same-sex marriage.
Notre Dame Law School’s new Religious Liberty Clinic is designed to train lawyers in all practice areas to grapple with issues of religious freedom. “It’s critical that if we fight for freedom of religion, it’s for freedom of all religious faiths or no faith at all,” Dean G. Marcus Cole said.
Justice Clarence Thomas spoke and Chief Justice John Roberts ruled. The US Supreme Court’s most unusual term featured victories for immigrants, abortion rights, LGBTQ workers and religious freedoms. The usually quiet Thomas’ baritone was heard by the whole world when the coronavirus outbreak upended the court’s traditional way of doing business. When the biggest decisions were handed down, the chief justice was almost always in the majority and dictated the reach of the court’s most controversial cases, whether they were won by the left or the right.
The Supreme Court of the United States is siding with two Catholic schools in a ruling that underscores that certain employees of religious schools, hospitals and social service centers can’t sue for employment discrimination. The high court’s ruling on Wednesday was 7-2.
The Indianapolis Archdiocese and an affiliated high school have once again lost a bid to limit discovery in a fired employee’s same-sex discrimination lawsuit to the question of whether the plaintiff’s claims fall under the First Amendment’s “ministerial exception.”