Free Republic

The son of a Canadian pastor who faces jail time for preaching to truckers who blocked the US-Canada border last year received a standing ovation in EU Parliament as he slammed PM Justin Trudeau for taking 'freedom and democracy' away from citizens. Nathaniel Pawlowski's father Artur Pawlowski potentially faces 10 years in prison after he delivered a 19-minute speech to truckers who were protesting federal vaccine mandates by blocking the border in early 2022. 'I am here today in desperation, a cry for help,' Pawlowski, 23, told members of the EU Parliament on July 4. 'I would like to stand...

Very slowly, a reckoning is taking place for outrageous tyrannical government restrictions imposed on the populace during the COVID panic. The zeal with which certain public officials tried to restrict basic freedoms in response to a virus with a tiny fatality rate for the non-elderly and non-infirm should stand as a lesson to all that our rights mean little or nothing to them and must be vigorously defended. This story from Moscow, Idaho, a college town of about 25,000 that is home to the University of Idaho, is both good news and bad news. Fox News reports:The city of Moscow...

Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega has continued his fierce assault on the Catholic Church, shuttering two important Catholic universities and appropriating their assets. In the official government newspaper La Gaceta, the Ministry of the Interior published Tuesday the annulment of the legal status of the Juan Pablo II University, based in Managua and four other cities, and the Autonomous Christian University of Nicaragua (UCAN), based in León and five other cities. The authorities of the two now defunct Catholic universities are required to deliver to the government of Daniel Ortega their databases containing all information on their students as well as...

A federal judge in Texas ruled that a provision of the Affordable Care Act that mandates free coverage of certain drugs that prevent HIV infections violates the religious beliefs of a Christian-owned company, according to reports.The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell on behalf of Braidwood Management Inc. The lawsuit challenges a provision in the ACA that required free coverage of HIV drugs Truvada and Descovy, commonly known as PrEP.“Defendants do not show a compelling interest in forcing private, religious corporations to cover PrEP drugs with no cost-sharing and no religious...

A federal judge in Texas ruled on Wednesday that a mandate requiring most health insurance companies to cover medicine that prevents HIV infection violates the religious freedom of certain businesses. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor partially resolves a lawsuit brought by Braidwood Management Inc., a Christian for-profit corporation owned by Republican mega-donor Steven Hotze that employs about 70 people. Hotze claimed that forcing his company to cover pre-exposure prophylaxis drugs, more commonly known as PrEP, under the Affordable Care Act would make the company “facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and...

A federal judge ruled yesterday that the city of Louisville, Kentucky, cannot ban a Christian photographer from limiting her wedding photography business to opposite-sex couples. In the lawsuit which Petapixel has previously reported on, photographer Chelsey Nelson challenged a Louisville law that required her to take photographs and blog online for same-sex weddings.Louisville’s 20-year-old “Fairness Ordinance” prevents discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. However, the lawsuit, filed on behalf of wedding photographer Chelsey Nelson by the conservative advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, alleges that the city’s law infringes on Nelson’s freedom of religion and speech. Beaton ruled that the...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito mocked Prince Harry, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau, and other foreigners who have taken it upon themselves to intervene in America’s abortion debate.In a speech to Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Summit in Rome, Italy, the conservative justice quipped he “had the honour this term of writing I think the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders who felt perfectly fine commenting on American law,” referring to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.“One of these was former prime...

(CP) Finnish lawmaker Päivi Räsänen, prosecuted for voicing her traditional Christian beliefs about marriage and sexuality, believes that a "heavy hatred for Christian values" in Western society will cause many Christians to censor themselves for social acceptance. The former interior minister who has served in Finnish Parliament for nearly three decades was one of several global political figures to speak at the annual International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C., this week. The event aims to increase "the public awareness and political strength for the international religious freedom movement. The summit is led by former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom...

A recent poll found that a sizeable majority of Americans say the moral lessons of Easter are still “very important” to preserving a strong America for future generations. Unfortunately, some of the loudest voices in American politics disagree. The Democrat Party has drifted so far from the values Americans hold dear that they aren’t just apathetic; they’re actively working to undermine them. Consider how Democrats treated people of faith during the COVID-19 pandemic. For months, they forced houses of worship to keep their doors closed, threatening them with fines and even jailtime if they dared to gather. When Democrat governors...

A federal judge in Cincinnati granted a temporary order this week blocking Air Force action against 18 service members including 11 who currently or recently served at Wright-Patterson in Dayton who are fighting the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. A federal judge in Cincinnati is stopping Air Force action against 18 servicemembers fighting the COVID-19 vaccine including 11 who currently or recently served at Wright-Patterson in Dayton. The servicemembers sued earlier this year over the denial of religious accommodations for refusing shots. The First Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) does, in fact, apply to the military, contrary to...

All 4,000 Navy members seeking a religious exemption to the abortion-tainted jab have been granted a temporary reprieve.FORT WORTH, Texas (LifeSiteNews) — A federal district court judge in Texas issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Navy from requiring 4,000 service members to take abortion-tainted COVID jabs. Judge Reed O’Connor issued a preliminary injunction on Monday against the Department of Defense (DOD) jab mandate. He previously stopped the DOD from enforcing it against dozens of Navy SEALs in a January 3 ruling. The ruling covers the 3,320 active-duty sailors and 864 reserve sailors who have religious objections to the COVID vaccines....

On Monday the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Navy's request to reinstate the U.S. Navy's COVID-19 vaccine requirement. In November, dozens of U.S. Navy SEALs claimed they were wrongfully denied COVID vaccination exemptions on religious grounds. The suit, which lists 35 unnamed service members, argues that that the Defense Department's mandate violates their First Amendment rights. While the percentage of vaccinated active duty personnel in each service is at 95 percent or higher, the number of unvaccinated personnel is close to 30,000. The Navy itself has previously said that it has not granted an exemption to any...

In U.S. Navy Seals 1-26 v. Biden, (5th Cir., Feb. 28, 2022), the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to grant the Navy a partial stay of an injunction issued by a Texas federal district court protecting 35 special warfare personnel who object on religious grounds to complying with the military's COVID vaccine mandate. The court said in part: Defendants have not demonstrated “paramount interests” that justify vaccinating these 35 Plaintiffs against COVID-19 in violation of their religious beliefs. They insist that “given the small units and remote locations in which special-operations forces typically operate, military commanders have determined...

According to a recent survey conducted by the Freedom Forum, fewer people in our country consider religious freedom as the first and most foundational freedom.It’s indeed alarming to see there’s waning knowledge about religious liberty being the cornerstone of a free society, the wellspring from which all other liberties flow.We’re at a point in our nation’s history when religious freedoms — indeed all of our constitutional rights and freedoms — are under attack like never before. A scan of headlines will quickly show that people of faith nationwide are being censored, alienated, and even fired because they’re living out or...

Dulles, Virginia – A federal courthouse is not typically the terrain on which Navy SEALs fight on behalf of their fellow Americans, but this week it proved to be a decisive venue for them. On January 3, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor issued an injunction against the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Navy, barring them from taking adverse action against 35 servicemembers who sought a religious exemption from DoD's vaccine mandate. The group includes Navy SEALs and other members of the Navy Special Warfare Command who hold strong religious convictions preventing them from taking the vaccine while remaining true to...

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra 'told Congress that he values religious freedom and that nothing will change with OCR concerning enforcement,' but 'his actions since then prove that he lied,' Roger Severino says.WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – The Biden administration is considering revoking a federal civil rights agency’s power to review alleged violations of religious liberty by the federal government, according to a draft memo to Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra obtained by Fox News. Fox reported that the memo concerns a 2017 Trump administration decision that empowered HHS’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to review federal agencies’...

There can be no compromise with those whose political program requires erasing American citizens' constitutionally guaranteed rights to freely speak and freely worship. On May 15, Fox News reported that three Republican senators would like to write caveats into the Equality Act that might give them the political cover to vote for the bill to criminalize free speech and Christianity in the United States.“Representatives from the offices of Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; Rob Portman, R-Ohio and Susan Collins, R-Maine, met with groups including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council and American...

It was good to see the Supreme Court rule yet again in favor of religious liberty in the latest California case to reach the nation’s highest court. Yet the fact that the ruling was only 5-4, not to mention some of the reasoning in the dissenting opinion, gives real cause for concern. This should not have been a close vote at all. Instead, it should have been a slam dunk for religious freedoms. As reported on Forbes, “The Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 margin late Friday that California's coronavirus-related restrictions on gathering in private homes violated constitutional rights on...

The court’s unsigned order in Tandon v. Newsom signifies the reemergence of religious liberty as a valued jurisprudential principle to the Supreme Court.On Friday, for the fifth time the U.S. Supreme Court slapped down a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding anti-religious COVID restrictions established by California’s embattled Gov. Gavin Newsom. The court’s unsigned order in Tandon v. Newsom represents much more than a victory for the plaintiffs who sought to host Bible studies in their homes on equal footing with analogous commercial activities: It signifies the reemergence of religious liberty as a valued jurisprudential principle to the Supreme...

Washington D.C., Mar 8, 2021 / 05:00 pm MT (CNA).- The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a former college student to pursue a remedy against school officials who restricted when and where he could evangelize on campus. In Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, the court ruled 8-1 that Chike Uzuegbunam, who was restricted from evangelizing on a public college campus, could sue school officials for nominal damages due to an alleged violation of his free speech. Justice Clarence Thomas authored the majority opinion, while Chief Justice John Roberts was the lone dissenter. “To demonstrate standing, the plaintiff must not only establish an...