The first suit by a church challenging the District of Columbia’s COVID-19 Orders was filed last week by an 850-member evangelical congregation.  The D.C. Orders limit the number of persons who can gather for religious services. The complaint (full text) in Capitol Hill Baptist Church v. Bowser, (D DC, filed 9/22/2020), alleges in part: For nearly 2,000 years, Christians have gathered each Sunday throughout the year in observance of Christ’s resurrection from the dead…

 The U.S. 8sth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday heard oral arguments in Business Leaders in Christ v. University of Iowa. (Audio of full oral arguments.) In the case, an Iowa federal district court granted a permanent injunction to a Christian student group that was denied Registered Student Organization status. The denial was based on the University’s Human Rights Policy that prohibits discrimination, among other things, on the basis of sexual orientation. The court…

 A 3-judge panel of Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled yesterday that the country’s Chief Rabbinate must convene a disciplinary panel to try Safed’s Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu. Jerusalem Post and Haaretz report on the decision. At issue are a number of statements by Eliyahu critical of Arabs and of the LGBTQ community. Also at issue are political statements by Eliyahu. The judges each wrote about the balance between free speech and limits on what a…

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s body will lie in repose at the Supreme Court on Wednesday and Thursday of this week (Supreme Court press release), and then will lie in state on Friday at the U.S. Capitol. (NBC News). The Supreme Court courtroom has been draped in black in accordance with Supreme Court custom. According to the Supreme Court’s press release announcing her death, a private burial service will take place at…

 From SSRN: Michael Conklin, Andrew Koppelman’s Proposal: A Lose-Lose Solution for Religious Liberty and Gay Rights (August 2020). Nelson Tebbe & Micah Schwartzman, Re-upping Appeasement: Religious Freedom and Judicial Politics in the 2019 Term, Virginia Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper No. 2020-68 (2020)). Netta Barak Corren, Taking Conflicting Rights Seriously,  (Villanova Law Review, Vol. 65, No. 2, 2020). John Ip, The Travel Ban, Judicial Deference, and the Legacy of Korematsu, ((2020)…

 Today the White House released a Presidential Message on Rosh Hashanah, 2020, which begins this evening. It reads in part: The First Lady and I wish our Jewish brothers and sisters Shana Tova and hope the millions observing this sacred day in America and around the world have a blessed start to the High Holy Days…. This year’s High Holy Days come with a sense of optimism for the people of Israel, as my Administration…

The EEOC announced this week that it has filed a Title VII lawsuit against Texas-based Frito-Lay, Inc. for failing to accommodate the religious needs of a Seventh Day Adventist employee working in Florida. The Commission explained: [A] West Palm Beach Frito-Lay warehouse employee applied for and received a promotion to route sales representative. The employee completed approximately five weeks of training without having to train on Saturdays. However, despite learning he could not work on…