Free Republic

Adding ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ to the list of protected classes may seem straightforward enough, but the proposed law does more—much more.The statutory language instead provides for an extreme remaking of all aspects of society, destroys the promise of equality for women, and threatens religious liberty and the privacy rights of all Americans, especially children. The proposed law also will upend state and federal protections of the unborn—yes, the Equality Act is about abortion too.Here are the five facts about the Equality Act Americans need to know.1. The Equality Act Is Deceptively SimpleThe statutory language of the Equality Act...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue explains why the Equality Act is flawed: According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Equality Act is “about ending discrimination”; President Joe Biden agrees. That may be its intent, but its effect is to promote the most comprehensive assault on Christianity ever written into law. This explains why the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been fighting this proposed law for years. Most recently it said the Equality Act “would discriminate against people of faith.” The Catholic League and many other civil rights and religious organizations have also sounded the alarm. The Equality Act...

Washington D.C., Jan 25, 2021 / 12:55 pm MT (CNA).- The Supreme Court on Monday ruled favorably toward a Catholic death row inmate requesting the presence of a priest at his execution. In a set of orders released on Monday morning, the court vacated a ruling of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court against Ruben Gutierrez, a Catholic death row inmate in Texas challenging the state’s prohibition of chaplains at executions. In addition to vacating the Fifth Circuit Court ruling, the Supreme Court also sent Gutierrez’s case back to lower courts for reconsideration, in light of findings by a district court...

Pope Francis needs to take tougher action against the United States’ most influential Catholic in Rome, Cardinal Raymond “Breitbart” Burke. The renegade cleric is not only undermining Francis’s reformist, compassionate papacy, and gospel teaching as it applies to refugees and Muslims, but the rebel prince of the church is also using his position within the walls of the Vatican to legitimize extremist forces that want to bring down Western liberal democracy, Stephen K. Bannon-style. Simply put, the Vatican is facing a political war between the modernizing Pope Francis and a conservative wing that wants to reassert white Christian dominance. Burke...

United Nations follows Pope Francis's lead in declaring international dayWith unanimous vote in the General Assembly, February 4 becomes the International Day of Human Fraternity.The United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously to designate February 4 — the anniversary of the signing of the “Document for Human Fraternity” by Pope Francis and Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb — as the “International Day of Human Fraternity.”The General Assembly voted Tuesday and invited Member States and the United Nations system to include this celebration in their calendar beginning in 2021.Supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Equatorial Guinea, Morocco, Burkina Faso and...

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, and it seems, as we approach the holiday of Hanukkah (beginning tonight) that these words are exceptionally true…especially in California, New York, and other states flexing their authoritarian muscles. ... Under the guise of “protecting against Covid-19,” multiple state governors have put citizens in lockdown. These governors have arbitrarily decided which businesses are essential and which are not, with total disregard for the holistic well-being of the people ... It is sickly ironic that Gov. Newsome here in California considers the production of television and films essential, but church...

We should demand that our pastors mark the Nativity with pomp and refuse to support churches whose leaders cower behind the lie that church is nonessential. The Supreme Court’s ruling last Wednesday against discriminatory targeting of religious groups with COVID-19 restrictions marked a significant victory in the ongoing battle to preserve religious liberty. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, hostile stakeholders in public office have assaulted the first freedom through superciliously labeling religious services “nonessential.” Christians in much of the country now find themselves in the demeaning and intolerable position of being allowed to worship only in the manner and...

Everywhere one looks there are warning signs, from labels on cigarette packs warning that smoking causes cancer, to ridiculous labels on thermometers that read, "Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally." Associate Justice Samuel Alito has delivered some serious warnings that too often are ignored by many who believe the freedoms we enjoy are inviolable. In an address last week to the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, Alito touched on several subjects, including COVID, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, free speech, and "bullying" of the Supreme Court by U.S. senators. Alito made a case for how each...

New York's dictatorial governor, Andrew Cuomo, may have met his match. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn is asking the Supreme Court of the United States to strike down Cuomo's Oct. 6 executive order shutting down "houses of worship " in areas of Brooklyn and Queens, while allowing "essential" businesses, like pet stores, groceries and big-box stores to stay open. Cuomo insists he's battling COVID-19. The Diocese says Cuomo's making a value judgment that going to Target is "essential" but taking communion isn't. Truth is, for devout communicants who are already suffering social isolation during the pandemic, finding the church...

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 13, 2020 / 11:30 am MT (CNA).- Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has spoken of his concern that religious liberty is under threat in the United States. The justice spoke out on Thursday about a range of issues which, he said, were challenging basic legal freedoms in the country. The justice warned that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic was acting as a “stress test” for Constitutional liberties, and that religious liberty as an emerging “disfavored” and “second tier” right. Alito made the comments on Nov. 13, in a Zoom presentation to the Federalist Society’s annual conference. The...

Fulton is part of a broader effort to hold the government to a higher standard whenever it limits our freedom—from our ability to speak, work, exercise religion, or simply live as we choose. On Nov. 4, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a challenge to the city’s exclusion of Catholic Social Services from participation in the foster care system due to its views on same-sex behavior. This may sound like a run-of-the-mill battle in the culture war, but there’s a lot more to it.Fulton is part of a broader effort to hold the government...

During a speech before the Federalist Society on Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito stated that “in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.” And is viewed by some as “not a cherished freedom, it’s often just an excuse for bigotry and it can’t be tolerated, even when there is no evidence that anybody has been harmed.” Alito began by cautioning that, aside from specific references to any Supreme Court cases, he isn’t commenting on the legality of coronavirus restrictions and isn’t making any statements as to whether the restrictions constitute good policy.He stated that coronavirus has...

BIDEN THREATENS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, SUGGESTS CHRISTIANS WITH CERTAIN TRADITIONS ARE ‘DREGS OF SOCIETY.’ Liberals often mock conservative Christians for supporting a notorious sinner and philanderer in Donald Trump, but the left has grown increasingly hostile to biblical small-o orthodox Christianity. Even the ostensibly moderate Democratic nominee Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. represents an insidious threat to the religious freedom of conservative Christians. He also represents a threat to Roman Catholics, even though he is himself a practicing Catholic. “This is our soul, da*mit, this is who we have to be… This is our real moral obligation,” the Democrat [Joe Biden] added....

California Democrat Sen. and 2020 VP nominee on the “Harris-Biden” ticket Kamala Harris,, fresh from her epic character assassination attempt during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, seems to have been designated the lead in trying to derail the Supreme Court nomination of 7th Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Harris’ partner in crime on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Maize Hirono of Hawaii, who plans to make her home visits by taxi after the Green New Deal kills airline travel, has said she will not meet with Barrett, lest her limited intellect be confused with the facts...

he notion that Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit will be President Trump’s third lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court has the liberal progressives in cardiac arrest. They threaten Trump with another impeachment for doing what the Constitution allows him to do – appoint Supreme Court justices and lower court judges (he has done 300 so far) up to the very last second before he leaves office, assuming he is not reelected. But it looks increasingly likely that he will be, particularly if he makes such a stellar pick. Trump has promised...

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ought to be remembered for two things: her attacks on the right to life and her attacks on religious liberty. In the 2000 case of Stenberg v. Carhart, the Supreme Court considered whether a state could prohibit partial-birth abortion. What is a partial-birth abortion? Justice Clarence Thomas answered that with clinical clarity in his dissenting opinion. "After dilating the cervix, the physician will grab the fetus by its feet and pull the fetal body out of the uterus into the vaginal cavity," Thomas wrote. "Assuming the physician has performed the dilation procedure correctly, the head will...

Pushes back against activist judgeINDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (ChurchMilitant.com) - Indiana's attorney general (AG) is defending the right of the Indianapolis archdiocese to dismiss a homosexual teacher. On Tuesday, Indiana AG Curtis Hill filed a brief challenging a judge's ruling that let a Catholic school teacher sue the archdiocese. Former Indianapolis Cathedral High School teacher Joshua Payne-Elliott is suing the archdiocese because he was fired after entering into a so-called same-sex marriage. Hill says the suit should be dismissed. In his brief, the AG invoked the First Amendment. "The suit should have been dismissed immediately under the First Amendment's longstanding protections for...

The “congregational singing” taking place at the close of the RNC 2020 convention flies in the face of all the warnings and restrictions on public worship, especially in with ban on public singing because of the risk of spread by breath droplets. I think this genius.

The Supreme Court has no excuse for allowing Nevada officials to use a public health crisis to fill poker tables while emptying pews. All four gospels record that the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus cast lots for his clothing. This was not the last time government agents were more interested in gambling than God. The latest instance is in Nevada, where the state government has granted casinos special privileges denied to churches. Casinos are allowed to operate at half-capacity, while churches are restricted to a hard cap of 50 people, no matter their capacity.When this double standard was challenged in...

Following the Supreme Court’s opinion in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, today the Department of Justice issued guidance summarizing religious liberty protections applicable to organizations that participate in the Department’s grant programs. The guidance, an initiative of the Department’s Religious Liberty Task Force, reiterates the fundamental premise affirmed by the Supreme Court in Espinoza that “[t]he Free Exercise Clause . . . ‘protects religious observers against unequal treatment’ and against ‘laws that impose special disabilities on the basis of religious status.’” [1] For that reason, absent a compelling government interest, the Department shall not disqualify otherwise eligible recipients from a public benefit solely...