Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Oklahoma Governor: The Ten Commandments Stay

Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin is standing up to her state’s Supreme Court and refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments the court said violated their state Constitution.

The governor noted that Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to reconsider the 7-2 decision which supported a challenge by the ACLU of Oklahoma.

The justices said the monument violated Article II, Section 5 of the state constitution:  “No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian institution as such.”

Legislators are pushing to allow a vote of the citizens to remove that passage from the state constitution.

“Oklahoma is a state where we respect the rule of law, and we will not ignore the state courts or their decisions,” Fallin said. “However, we are also a state with three co-equal branches of government.”

“Legislators and supporters of the monument intended it as a tribute to the importance of the Ten Commandments in our history and our system of laws,” Fallin added in a statement. “Celebrating the historical importance of religions and religious values is not a new idea. Our nation is steeped in references to God and the rights He bestows on all men and women.”

“None of these represent state endorsement of or support for any religion. They are celebrations or visual representations of our culture and events of historical importance,” she added.

Attorney General Pruitt noted that the monument is almost identical to one in Texas that the Supreme Court ruled constitutional.  The monument was erected by private donations, not with state funds.

Supreme Court Puts Texas Abortion Law on Hold

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, has put on hold the Texas abortion law that would require clinics to meet higher standards of cleanliness and safety.  Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito were in the minority.

The ruling means the law cannot go into effect until the court decides if they will give a full hearing to the appeal on the case.

Abortion proponents say that if the law goes into effect, abortion clinics will be limited to four metropolitan areas and there will be no clinics west of San Antonio.

“This case presents a very, very dramatic impact in the type of restrictions on access to abortion clinics that we’ve seen over the past few years,” Nancy Northup, the president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the New York Times. “If this case is not taken by the Supreme Court, it’s going to allow a continuation of the closing of clinics by these sneaky, underhanded methods.”

Texas leaders say they will be vigorously defending the law before the Court.

“H.B. 2 was a constitutional exercise of Texas’ lawmaking authority that was correctly and unanimously upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement. “Texas will continue to fight for higher-quality health care standards for women while protecting our most vulnerable — the unborn, and I’m confident the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold this law.”

Oklahoma Supreme Court Rules 10 Commandments Monument Must Be Removed

The Oklahoma Supreme Court wants the Ten Commandments removed from the state capitol grounds.

A monument with the Ten Commandments was placed on the capitol grounds in 2012 and was paid for by private funds.  The court ruled that the Ten Commandments “indirectly” benefits the Jewish and Christian faiths and thus violates the state constitution.

The court rejected the argument of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt that the monument was nearly identical to a monument in Texas that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled as constitutional.  The Oklahoma justices said it violated the state constitution.

“Quite simply, the Oklahoma Supreme Court got it wrong,” Pruitt told reporters after the meeting.  “The court completely ignored the profound historical impact of the Ten Commandments on the foundation of Western law. Furthermore, the court’s incorrect interpretation of Article 2, Section 5 contradicts previous rulings of the court. In response, my office will file a petition with the court for a rehearing in light of the broader implications of this ruling on other areas of state law. Additionally, we are requesting a stay of the enforcement of the court’s order until the court can consider the petition for rehearing. Finally, if Article 2, Section 5 is going to be construed in such a manner by the court, it will be necessary to repeal it.”

The monument has been the target of various groups who demanded they be allowed to place their own monument in the complex including a group of satanists.

Supreme Court Could Decide Texas Abortion Law’s Constitutionality

Pro-abortion groups have filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in their quest to eliminate a Texas abortion law that calls for higher safety and wellness standards for clinics that provide abortions.

The bill, signed in 2013, is HB 2.  The bill requires abortion clinics to meet the same health and cleanliness standards as other ambulatory surgical centers.  It also bans late term abortions in the state except for rape and incest.  The law also requires abortionists to obtain admitting privileges at a hospital with in 30 miles of their clinic.

“… new research and advanced technology give prematurely-born children a renewed chance at life, which should give us all pause as we argue the definition of viability,” stated then Texas Governor Rick Perry, who signed the bill.

“House Bill 2 ensures that anyone performing abortions in Texas is doing so in a facility that is safe, clean and prepared to deal with any emergencies that might occur – a reasonable, common sense expectation for those caring for the health and safety of Texans.”

Twenty abortion clinics in the state closed by May 2014 rather than meet the health and cleanliness requirements of the bill.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Texas earlier this month.

“Reviewing Texas’s statute against a backdrop of varying state regulations of abortion, Roe assessed the states’ interests in regulating abortion, acknowledging a legitimate interest in women’s health,” wrote the panel.

“It held that states may not proscribe abortion prior to viability. … After viability, generally at the end of the second trimester, states could proscribe or regulate abortion except when an abortion was necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.”

Without a Supreme Court stay, the law will go into effect July 1.

Supreme Court Sides With Church On Arizona Sign Law

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down an Arizona law that forced churches to display their signs at night while other signs were allowed to be continually displayed.

The Good News Community Church of Gilbert, Arizona had filed suit in 2008 over a city ordinance that prohibited signs pointing out directions to an event from being erected more than 12 hours before an event and more than one hour after the scheduled beginning of the event.

The city kept telling the church they put up too many signs and that they left them displayed for too long.

The church said that the law was unfairly being applied to churches.  Political signs were not given the same restrictions for being displayed at short times.  For signs that are not non-ideological there are no restrictions on the time for display.

The Supreme Court in a unanimous decision ruled the city was discriminatory in the law and thus declared it unconstitutional.

“[A]n innocuous justification cannot transform a facially content-based law into one that is content neutral,” the justices wrote. “Innocent motives do not eliminate the danger of censorship presented by a facially content-based statute, as future government officials may one day wield such statutes to suppress disfavored speech.”

“That is why the First Amendment expressly targets the operation of the laws—i.e., the ‘abridg[ement] of speech’—rather than merely the motives of those who enacted them,” the ruling continued.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the church, hailed the Court’s decision.

“The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling is a victory for everyone’s freedom of speech,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman in a statement. “Speech discrimination is wrong regardless of whether the government intended to violate the First Amendment or not, and it doesn’t matter if the government thinks its discrimination was well-intended. It’s still [the] government playing favorites, and that’s unconstitutional.”

Supreme Court Allows Striking Down Of N.C. Abortion Law

A North Carolina abortion law that would have required women to see an ultrasound of their baby before having an abortion has officially been declared unconstitutional as the Supreme Court refused to hear the state’s appeal of a lower court ruling.

The Women’s Right to Know Act was passed in 2011 and immediately challenged by pro-abortion activists and groups.  The law required the abortionist to show the ultrasound to the woman and describe to her the child’s features along with offering a chance to hear the baby’s heartbeat.  The law also included a 24 hour mandatory waiting period.

The rejection by the Supremes means the Fourth Circuit’s ruling invalidates the law.

“This compelled speech, even though it is a regulation of the medical profession, is ideological in intent and in kind,” the panel wrote. “The First Amendment not only protects against prohibitions of speech, but also against regulations that compel speech. A regulation compelling speech is by its very nature content-based, because it requires the speaker to change the content of his speech or even to say something where he would otherwise be silent.”

“Moreover, the statement compelled here is ideological; it conveys a particular opinion,” it continued. “The state freely admits that the purpose … is to convince women seeking abortions to change their minds or reassess their decisions.”

Supporters of the law say that they can’t understand why abortion is the only medical procedure in the state where doctors don’t have to tell the patient what can happen during the procedure.

“In any other medical procedure, doctors would have a duty to disclose all of the relevant information, and, yet, a procedure as destructive and life-changing as abortion is held to a lower standard,” Tami Fitzgerald of the North Carolina Values Coalition told reporters.

“We’re disappointed that the Supreme Court has decided not to review a decision that denies mothers this fully informed consent about human life in the womb and the methods abortionists use to end it,” also commented Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Legal Counsel Steven Aden in a statement. “Contrary to the 4th Circuit’s decision, there is nothing ‘extreme’ about a measure that only seeks to require abortionists to employ technology they are already using for abortions. Abortionists simply don’t want to use it in a way that jeopardizes their profits and shows women the truth.”

Supreme Court Rules Abercrombie & Fitch Discriminated Against Muslim Woman

The Supreme Court has ruled that a woman who was denied a job with the clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch because of her headscarf was discriminated against on the basis of her religion.

The ruling was 8-1 in favor of the woman.

“Thus, the rule for disparate-treatment claims based on a failure to accommodate a religious practice is straightforward: An employer may not make an applicant’s religious practice, confirmed or otherwise, a factor in employment decisions,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the 8-1 majority.

The court said that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act requires employers to not consider religious accommodations in hiring processes.

“For example, suppose that an employer thinks (though he does not know for certain) that a job applicant may be an orthodox Jew who will observe the Sabbath, and thus be unable to work on Saturdays. If the applicant actually requires an accommodation of that religious practice, and the employer’s desire to avoid the prospective accommodation is a motivating factor in his decision, the employer violates Title VII,” Justice Scalia wrote.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit on behalf of the woman.

Abercrombie claimed they had not violated the law because she had not been denied employment for the head scarf.  They said she did not mention during her interview she was wearing the scarf for religious reasons and so it’s not on the company to know that’s why she was wearing it.  Scarves are a violation of the company’s employee dress code.

In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said that the company could not be guilty of discrimination because the company’s policy applied to all employees and not just Muslims.

Missouri Considering Bill To Protect Religious Student Groups

After Vanderbilt University and others punished Christian organizations and stripped them of their rights to be official student groups if they did not allow non-members of their faith to obtain leadership positions, Missouri legislators are considering action that would protect student groups.

House Bill 104 passed the Missouri House in March and is being considered in the Senate.  The “Student Freedom of Association Act” was introduced by Representative Elijah Haahr who represents a part of Springfield, MO.

“No public institution of higher learning shall [deny] a religious student association any benefit available to any other student association, or discriminate against a religious student association with respect to such benefit, based on that association’s requirement that its leaders or members adhere to the association’s sincerely held religious beliefs, comply with the association’s sincere religious observance requirements,” reads the bill in part.

“No public institution of higher learning shall substantially burden a student’s exercise of religion unless the institution can demonstrate that application of the burden to the student is in furtherance of a compelling interest of the public institution of higher learning and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling interest.”

The bill is in response to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in 2010 that allowed a public university to stop funding religious groups if they violate any university “anti-discrimination” policy by requiring the religious group’s leadership to be members of their faith.

Opponents of religious freedom are mobilizing against the potential law.

“HB 104 would give religious student groups unprecedented exemptions regarding anti-discrimination policies,” stated Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“Like the harmful so-called ‘religious freedom’ bills we’ve seen in the news recently, this bill cloaks discrimination under the guise of religious freedom. This bill has already passed the House, so this is the last chance for you to stop the bill in the Missouri legislature.”

Supreme Court Throws Out Ruling Against Catholic Group

A Catholic organization that was being threatened with fines by the IRS because they were not providing insurance coverage including contraception has been given a reprieve by the Supreme Court.

The court granted Michigan Catholic Conference their request for an exemption for religious regions against the mandate by the Department of Health and Human Services.  The ruling means that the previous decision against the group was vacated and the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit must consider the Hobby Lobby decision in reviewing the case.

A counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty praised the ruling in a message to the Christian Post.

“That’s what is so bizarre about the government’s position,” said Mark Rienzi a senior counsel with the Becket Fund.

“The government says they are not a ‘religious employer’ and therefore they have to sign forms to authorize and require other people to give out contraceptives for them. That makes no sense at all.”

Rienzi said the Court will likely have to take up one of these cases in the future.

I think that the Court will continue the path it has set in the long string of mandate cases to date … and it will protect religious ministries from this mandate,” said Rienzi.

“This whole fight is unnecessary and silly. Obviously the government can distribute contraceptives without the forced involvement of the Catholic Church and its ministries. The government can put a man on the moon — they can distribute pills without religious ministries.”

The group is the sixth the justices have sided with on the issue since December 2013.

Canadian Supreme Court Rules With Atheist Against Christian Prayers

The Canadian Supreme Court has ruled that a Christian prayer taking place at a town meeting is a violation of the law because it shows a preference for one religion over another.

The court had ruled on the appeal of a lower court’s ruling that the major of Saguenay had not violated an atheist’s rights by opening public meetings with a prayer.

“The prayer recited by the municipal council in breach of the state’s duty of neutrality resulted in a distinction, exclusion and preference based on religion …. which, in combination with the circumstances in which the prayer was recited, turned the meetings into a preferential space for people with theistic beliefs,” wrote the court.

“Although non‑believers could also participate, the price for doing so was isolation, exclusion and stigmatization. This impaired [plaintiff’s] right to exercise his freedom of conscience and religion.”

Because the decision is nationally binding, other cities across Canada immediately began removing any references to God from their public hearings.

However, Bruce Clemenger of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada said the decision was not as sweeping as anti-Christian groups claim it is.

“The Supreme Court did not ban offering prayers at government events, but they did offer guidance about when a prayer may cross a line,” said Clemenger.

“It was the circumstances and context of the prayer that the court found violated the neutrality of the state and contravened the religious freedom of an atheist who challenged the prayer.”