Free Republic

A Colorado clash between gay rights and religion started as an angry Facebook posting about a wedding cake but now has big implications for anti-discrimination laws in 22 states. Baker Jack Phillips is challenging a Colorado law that says he was wrong to have turned away a same-sex couple who wanted a cake to celebrate their 2012 wedding. The justices said Monday they will consider Phillips' case, which could affect all states. Twenty-two states include sexual orientation in anti-discrimination laws that bar discrimination in public accommodations. Phillips argues that he turned away Charlie Craig and David Mullins not because they...

A Colorado baker being punished by his state, which also imposed an indoctrination requirement on him and his employees, for living by his Christian faith now will have his case reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices announced on Monday they will hear the dispute involving Jack Phillips and his Masterpiece Cakeshop in the fall.

JUST IN: Supreme Court agrees to hear appeal from baker who turned away same-sex couple.

The justices are expected to take the bench on Monday at 10 a.m. to issue opinions in argued cases. There are six decisions still outstanding, involving everything from cross-border shootings to the death penalty and public funding for playgrounds at religious preschools. To be sure, there is no guarantee that we will actually get opinions on the merits in all six of these cases: Three of the remaining cases were argued before Justice Neil Gorsuch took the bench in April, creating a not-insubstantial possibility that the justices are deadlocked. With Gorsuch now on the bench, the justices could order reargument...

One of Neil Gorsuch’s sharpest dissents as an appeals court judge came just six months before he was nominated for the Supreme Court. That’s when he sided with a New Mexico seventh-grader who was handcuffed and arrested after his teacher said the student had disrupted gym class with fake burps. Nearly a year later, Gorsuch sits on the nation’s highest court and the boy’s mother is asking the justices to take up her appeal. She’s using Gorsuch’s words to argue that she has a right to sue the officer who arrested her son. The court could act as early as...

President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court could have a say in rulings on religious freedom, transgender bathrooms in schools, and private property rights, if he is confirmed before April 16. One is regarding whether a Christian school in Missouri is entitled to compete for the same state dollars as nonreligious schools. The outcome could affect so-called Blaine amendments in states across the country. The second case involves property rights in Wisconsin. The third is a transgender bathroom case out of a Virginia high school, and how broadly the federal government may interpret Title IX, a federal law that...

The U.S. Supreme Court has been handed a bombshell: An appeal of a lower-court ruling that banned Christian counselors from talking with teens about the biblical standard for sexuality. The case challenges laws that force licensed counselors to affirm homosexuality, prohibiting them from helping clients overcome same-sex attractions. Such laws have been adopted in New Jersey, where a biased judge used it to shut down a Christian ministry, and in California and other states. The case already was presented to the Supreme Court several years ago, but it did not get a ruling. Now a new appeal has been submitted...

The U.S. Supreme Court returns Monday to the issue of race in politics when it hears claims that North Carolina and Virginia packed African-Americans into a small number of voting districts to limit their statewide electoral power. Both cases present challenges to new maps drawn after the 2010 census. In North Carolina the issue is the boundaries for its congressional districts, while in Virginia state legislative districts are contested.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA – The United States Supreme Court declined on Monday to review a lower court’s ruling refusing to strike down on Second Amendment grounds Connecticut’s ban on certain semi-automatic firearms including the most popular rifles in the Nation. The Connecticut Citizens’ Defense League (CCDL) and other plaintiffs challenged Connecticut’s ban in 2013, arguing that the ban openly flouts the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that law-abiding citizens have an individual right to keep commonly owned firearms in their homes for self-defense.

The U.S. Navy chaplain who was removed from the military for disobeying a “lawful” order banning prayer “in Jesus’ name” has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and overturn a decade of rulings in his case. The petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court was filed by attorney John B. Wells on behalf of Gordon J. Klingenschmitt. His case was filed back in 2011, after his removal from the military over the issue of praying “in Jesus’ name” sparked years of battles. Since his removal, Klingenschmitt has been leading the PrayInJesusName.org ministry, and he also has been serving...

The nation’s highest court first rejected Blagojevich’s request in March, but his attorneys filed a petition for rehearing in April. The Supreme Court turned down that petition Monday without comment.

Ted Cruz breathes a huge sigh of relief, for now. Sibley has another plan. Chief Justixe Roberts made his decision late yesterday: Sibley's application was directed to Chief Justice John Roberts, the justice assigned to emergency appeals from the Washington, D.C. area. Roberts denied it without seeking a response from any other party, a sign of how little merit Roberts found in the application. Undeterrred, Sibley writes on his blog that he will now appeal to Clarence Thomas: Yesterday, Chief Justice Roberts denied my Application to be relieved from the Restraining Order which prohibits me from releasing any of the...

The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will have to rehear a free-speech case that was argued before the justices in October, the first sign of an alteration in its normal flow of business because of the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. In a one-sentence order, the court said that it will restore Garcetti v. Ceballos , No. 04-473, to its calendar for reargument. The court did not say why. Historically, however, one reason for such a relatively unusual move has been that the court's preliminary vote in a case was 5 to 4 and one of the justices...

Because of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court will likely be left with just eight justices for the rest of its term—four reliable liberals, three reliable conservatives, and one Anthony Kennedy, who leans to the right but has traditionally acted as the court's swing vote. Since Senate Republicans have already said they are not in any hurry to confirm a new justice so long as President Obama remains in office, we're probably about to witness a number of deeply important cases end in a 4-to-4 split this year. And what happens then? When a Supreme Court case...

The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to take up an appeal that says Congress flouted the Constitution by kick-starting Obamacare in the wrong chamber. Justices have already weighed in on the Affordable Care Act's mandates, government subsidies and birth control rules, but declined to wade into a bid by a conservative group to scrap the entire law based on the origination clause drafted by the Founding Fathers. The Pacific Legal Foundation said the Affordable Care Act of 2010 raises hundreds of billions in taxes, making it a revenue bill subject to the founders' vision for which chamber should act first. Since...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court seemed poised on Monday to deliver a severe blow to organized labor. The justices appeared divided along familiar lines during an extended argument over whether government workers who choose not to join unions may nonetheless be required to help pay for collective bargaining. The court's conservative majority appeared ready to say that such compelled financial support violates the First Amendment Collective bargaining, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said, is inherently political when the government is the employer, and issues like merit pay, promotions and classroom size are subject to negotiation. The best hope for a victory...

MINNEAPOLIS (October 20, 2015) — Referencing rulings to restrict capital punishment and changing sentiment within the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia said Tuesday he wouldn't be surprised if the nation's highest court invalidates the death penalty. Scalia addressed capital punishment during a University of Minnesota Law School appearance in which he also made clear retirement isn't in his near-term plans. The death penalty came up as Scalia described his judicial view that the Constitution is an "enduring" document that shouldn't be open to broad interpretation — while sharing frustration that his colleagues too readily find flexibility in it.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued an Order this morning denying the Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the Wisconsin John Doe case.

The Supreme Court has set April 28 as the date for historic arguments on gay marriage. The justices agreed in January to definitively answer whether the Constitution allows states to ban same-sex marriage. A ruling is expected by the end of the term in late June. The court granted cases from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. It will decide whether states can refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples and whether they can refuse to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed elsewhere.

Cardinals defensive lineman Darnell Dockett isn't afraid to speak his mind, and it usually takes place on Twitter. Often, it's funny, other times it's just weird (and ultimately not true). But on Saturday, Dockett probably would've been better off saying nothing at all.