Alliance Defending Freedom
At Idaho wedding chapel, a hollow victory for religious freedom (COMMENTARY)
By Jacob Lupfer — October 24, 2014
WASHINGTON (RNS) Donald and Evelyn Knapp are businesspeople, not pastors. They abandoned their religious vocation the moment they traded the sacred meaning of marriage for a profit-making enterprise.
Idaho city: Chapel owners exempt from discrimination law
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey — October 24, 2014
(RNS) The Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom said the Hitching Post wedding chapel is not a nonprofit religious organization like a church, but rather is a religious for-profit limited liability company like a Bible publisher.
Idaho ministers sue to prevent gay weddings at for-profit wedding chapel
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey — October 19, 2014
(RNS) Donald and Evelyn Knapp are ordained Pentecostal ministers who say they can't provide same-sex services at their for-profit wedding chapel because it's "something forbidden by their religious beliefs and ordination vows."
Houston subpoenas pastors’ sermons in gay rights ordinance case
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey — October 14, 2014
(RNS) The ordinance bans discrimination among businesses that serve the public, private employers, in housing and in city employment and city contracting.
IRS agrees to monitor churches for electioneering
By Kimberly Winston — July 21, 2014
(RNS) - Freedom From Religion Foundation has reached a settlement with the Internal Revenue Service over electioneering in churches, a violation of their tax-exempt status.
LGBT workers may feel impact of Hobby Lobby ruling
By Cathy Lynn Grossman — July 1, 2014
(RNS) The next religious liberties faceoff may be between LGBT workers and private business owners who, the Supreme Court says, have religious rights.
Supreme Court won’t wade into fight over graduations in churches
By Kimberly Winston — June 16, 2014
(RNS) In 2012, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the decision to hold a public high school graduation ceremony at a Wisconsin megachurch was “offensive” and “coercive.”
Gay marriage victories propel cases toward Supreme Court at record speed
By Richard Wolf — May 30, 2014
WASHINGTON (RNS) The race to legalize same-sex marriage in the nation’s state and federal courts has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, fueled by an unbroken string of pro-marriage rulings since the Supreme Court first weighed in on the subject last June. As each decision strikes down state bans, it becomes more difficult for judges to ignore […]
Kansas, Arizona bills reflect national fight over gay rights vs. religious liberty
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey — February 21, 2014
(RNS) Fights in Arizona and Kansas about denying services to gays and lesbians mirrors the national debate on whether the religious rights of business owners also extend to their for-profit companies.
This year’s March for Life reaches a new group: evangelicals
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey — January 17, 2014
(RNS) James Dobson will speak at the March for Life rally on Jan. 22, as part of a new strategy to expand the annual event's reach beyond its Catholic base to include evangelicals.
Update: New Jersey school district will allow religious holiday songs
By Katherine Burgess — November 5, 2013
(RNS) The ban was met with opposition from the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which sent the school board a letter charging that the district lawyer who advised the ban had misunderstood federal rulings on related cases.
Supreme Court to consider religious prayer at government meetings
By Lauren Markoe — October 31, 2013
WASHINGTON (RNS) Starting in 1999, two-thirds of prayers offered at the opening of the Greece Town Council in upstate New York invoked "Jesus" or "the Holy Spirit," and pastors also asked those present to pray with them and recite the Lord’s Prayer.
New Jersey school district bans religious songs at winter concerts
By Jeff Goldman — October 30, 2013
BORDENTOWN, N.J. (RNS) A conservative legal group says school officials have misread previous court decisions on whether to allow religious songs at school concerts.
Atheist group can sue IRS over enforcement of pulpit politicking
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey — August 23, 2013
(RNS) U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman ruled that the Freedom from Religion Foundation “has standing to seek an order requiring the IRS to treat religious organizations no more favorably than it treats the Foundation.”
Feds offer atheists a clergy tax break that they don’t want
By Bob Smietana — August 21, 2013
(RNS) "We are not a church," atheists say. Government lawyers disagree, saying atheist leaders can be considered ministers.
