Tag: 1st amendment

New Guidelines Will Allow Federal Workers To Express Religious Beliefs At Workplace

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo on July 28 aimed at protecting religious expression among federal workers, allowing them to display religious items and discuss religion in the workplace.

OPM Director Scott Kupor said in the memo that federal agencies must ensure that employees have the right to express their religious beliefs “to the greatest extent possible,” in accordance with the Constitution, unless such expression would cause “an undue hardship on business operations.”

“Federal employees should never have to choose between their faith and their career,” Kupor said in a statement announcing the latest guidance for federal agencies.

The memo outlines forms of permissible religious expression by federal workers in the workplace, such as displaying Bibles, crosses, crucifixes, and mezuzahs on desks and within designated workspaces.

Federal agencies must also allow their workers to engage in “individual or communal religious expressions,” provided that such conduct does not take place during on-duty time, according to the memo.

It states that federal employees should be able to engage in conversations about religious topics, including encouraging co-workers to participate in religious expression of faith, such as prayer, and “attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views,” so long as such efforts are not harassing in nature.

According to the memo, federal workers may engage co-workers in polite discussion, while not on duty, about why they believe their faith is correct and why a “non-adherent should re-think” their religious beliefs.

However, it stated that if the nonadherent requests that such attempts stop, the employee is expected to honor that request.

Federal workers are permitted to invite co-workers to church services, even if they belong to “a different faith.” Supervisors may also post on bulletin boards invitations to Easter service at their church.

The memo also states that park rangers leading tours in national parks may join their tour groups in prayer and that Veterans Affairs doctors may pray over their patients for recovery. Security guards stationed at the front desks of federal office buildings may also display religious items on their desks.

Kupor said the guidance is intended to ensure that the federal workplace is compliant with the law while also fostering an environment that is “welcoming to Americans of all faiths.”

“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, we are restoring constitutional freedoms and making government a place where people of faith are respected, not sidelined,” Kupor said.

In February, Trump signed an executive order to establish a task force within the Department of Justice that is aimed at “eradicating anti-Christian bias” in the federal government.

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9th Circuit Rules Oregon Law Forcing Adoptive Parents Into Gender Ideology Violates First Amendment

Oregon passed a law forcing any parents interested in adopting a child to “respect, accept, and support” the child’s claims of “transgender” or other LGBT identities as a prerequisite to becoming an adoptive parent.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday, however, that such a requirement violates the First Amendment, allowing prospective adoptive mother Jessica Bates, who sued the state with an Alliance Defending Freedom legal team, to proceed to adopting siblings from foster care.

Bates sued Oregon in 2023 after she was categorically denied the ability to adopt children in the state because she refused to “lie to children and tell them that girls can be boys and vice versa” and “could not agree to use inaccurate pronouns to refer to a child or to take children to pride parades,” ADF stated.

“Every child deserves a loving home, and children suffer when the government excludes people of faith from the adoption and foster system. Jessica is a caring mom of five who is now free to adopt after Oregon officials excluded her because of her common-sense belief that a girl cannot become a boy or vice versa,” ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Litigation Strategy Jonathan Scruggs, who represented Bates in court, said in a statement.

“Because caregivers like Jessica cannot promote Oregon’s dangerous gender ideology to young kids and take them to events like pride parades, the state considers them to be unfit parents. That is false and incredibly dangerous, needlessly depriving kids of opportunities to find a loving home. The 9th Circuit was right to remind Oregon that the foster and adoption system is supposed to serve the best interests of children, not the state’s ideological crusade.”

The 2-1 decision was written by Judge Daniel Bress, a Trump appointee, and joined by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, a Clinton appointee. The sole dissenter was Judge Richard Clifton, an appointee of George W. Bush.

The court ruled that both Bates’ free speech and free exercise of religion claims were burdened by Oregon’s law, because “Oregon’s policy both restricts and compels speech based on content and viewpoint in the areas of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” and “burdens Bates’s religious exercise and is neither neutral nor generally applicable.”

“Fundamental as basic freedoms, these rights spring from a common constitutional principle: that the government may not insist upon our adherence to state-favored orthodoxies, whether of a religious or political variety,” Bress wrote.

The law directed parents to indoctrination courses, where the state’s expectations were laid out, including the condition that parents must “support through your words” the claimed gender identity or sexual orientation of a child. It laid out several different made-up potential pronoun types like “Ze” and “Hir/Zir,” but noted that those are not the only ones and that there are an “infinite number” of potential pronouns.

The guidance from the state also asks parents to essentially groom their children into assuming some kind of “transgender” identity or sexual orientation, stating that “whether or not a youth in your care openly identifies as LGBTQ+,” parents should nonetheless peddle propaganda in their homes, “[d]isplay[ing] ‘hate-free zone’ signs or other symbols indicating an LGBTQ-affirming environment (e.g., pink triangle, rainbow, or ally flag)” (bold in original). The guidance also mandates “‘[p]rovid[ing] access to a variety of books, movies, and materials, including those that positively represent same-gender relationships,’ while ‘[p]oint[ing] out LGBTQ+ celebrities, role models who stand up for the LGBTQ+ community, and people who demonstrate bravery in the face of social stigma.’”

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The Department of Justice Just Sided with RFK Jr. Group’s Claim That News Orgs Can’t Boycott Misinformation

The Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to end “childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure,” submitted an antitrust complaint against The Washington Post, the BBC, the Associated Press, and Reuters in January 2023. On Friday, the Justice Department published a statement of interest in favor of the CHD, which implores the federal court hearing the case to recognize that harm to viewpoint competition is grounds for antitrust prosecution. 

In the case, Children’s Health Defense v. Washington Post, the CHD alleges that the defendants violated federal antitrust law through their establishment of the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. The complaint claims that the TNI formed a “group boycott” to exclude publishers of “misinformation” partially or entirely from popular internet platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

The complaint cites a March 2022 statement by Jamie Angus, senior news controller at BBC, who said “the real rivalry now is…between all trusted news providers and a tidal wave of unchecked [reporting] that’s being piped out mainly through digital platforms,” as evidence of “the economic self-interest behind the TNI’s group boycott [and] the anti-competitive purpose and effect of that boycott.” CHD misconstrues the meaning of Angus’ words in an attempt to persuade the court that the TNI is a “horizontal agreement among competitor firms to cut off from the market upstart rivals threatening their business model.”

CHD alleges that TNI’s restrictions are unreasonable not only because they “collusively reduce output” and “lower product quality”—conventional indicators of illegal collusive behavior—but because “they suppress competition in the marketplace of ideas.” Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division is running with CHD’s argument.

Slater said that the “Antitrust Division will always defend the principle that the antitrust laws protect free markets, including the marketplace of ideas,” in a press release. In the department’s statement of interest, Slater references the majority opinion from U.S. v. Associated Press (1945) to argue that “right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection.”

Joseph Coniglio, director of antitrust and innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, agrees with Slater that “collusive viewpoint restrictions can be antitrust violations.” However, he emphasizes that, “if the platforms allegedly taking down content are not defendants and don’t have vertical agreements with…TNI to do so, it’s hard to see how the latter could be illegal.” (CHD alleges that censorship “by Facebook, Google and Twitter, [caused] damages to date of over $1,000,000,” but does not name these platforms as defendants in its suit.)

Slater’s statement was submitted amid ongoing litigation between Media Matters and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the other federal antitrust enforcement agency. The FTC opened an investigation into Media Matters in May for facilitating an alleged advertising boycott against the social media platform X. Advertising holding companies Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group of Companies agreed not to enter into “any agreement or practice that would steer advertising dollars away from publishers based on their political or ideological viewpoints” as a condition of their merger settlement with the FTC in June. Media Matters has challenged the FTC’s probe into its operations on First Amendment grounds.

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The Biden Admin Stole Your Data to Rig Elections and Censor Speech

Jason Chaffetz has delivered a devastating exposé that should terrify every American who values his or her constitutional rights. Writing in the New York Post, the former House Oversight Committee chairman pulls back the curtain on what may be the most comprehensive assault on American democracy we’ve witnessed in our lifetime—and it’s happening with our own tax dollars.

Chaffetz revealed that the Biden administration didn’t just weaponize federal agencies against political opponents; it orchestrated an elaborate data-theft operation that would make authoritarian regimes jealous. As Chaffetz explains, “Federal entities outsourced unlawful data collection to politically sympathetic partners. Rather than directly amassing data, they procured or exchanged it from or with nonprofits and technology firms.”

This isn’t some conspiracy theory cooked up by partisan critics. This is documented reality, backed by Freedom of Information Act requests and congressional testimony that the mainstream media has conveniently ignored.

The scope of this operation is breathtaking. Chaffetz exposes how the Small Business Administration—an agency supposedly focused on helping entrepreneurs—was transformed into a partisan voter registration machine. The SBA “proactively reached out to states, especially battleground states like Arizona and Georgia, to seek recognition as voter-registration organizations, despite federal law stipulating that states must initiate this process under the National Voter Registration Act.”

When SBA Associate Administrator Jennifer Kim was pressed during a 2024 hearing about whether the agency conducted events in non-Democrat-leaning regions, she couldn’t provide a straight answer. The evidence speaks for itself: “documented evidence of partisan bias in these efforts” reveals an administration that viewed federal resources as tools for electoral manipulation.

But voter manipulation was just the beginning. The Biden administration’s data dragnet extended into financial surveillance that targeted Americans based on their political beliefs. Christian nonprofits, gun manufacturers, conservative protesters—even members of the Trump family—found their accounts terminated without justification. As Chaffetz notes, “This initiative ultimately targeted Christian nonprofits, gun manufacturers, conservative demonstrators — even Melania and Barron Trump — shutting down their accounts without justification.”

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The Protest-Industrial-Complex Isn’t Peaceful, It’s “Civil Terrorism” …

Ilya Shapiro and Jesse Arm of the Manhattan Institute authored an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, unveiling a plan for the federal government to take decisive action against the rogue permanent protest industry—comprising some Marxist groups and professional agitators—waging continuous color revolutions that have brought chaos to American cities. 

“Americans instinctively understand that what happened in Los Angeles wasn’t peaceful organizing or messy democracy. Such unrest invites criminal mayhem and political violence, or what our Manhattan Institute colleague Tal Fortgang has described as “civil terrorism.” It’s often perpetrated by agitators who hide behind masks,” Shapiro and Arm wrote. 

What’s clear is that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to peaceful protest—it does not shield anonymous social justice warriors and paid demonstrators affiliated with anti-American, Marxist movements, some of whom are funded by dark money NGOs and even entities based in countries deemed foreign adversaries. These bad actors appear to be waging a form of hybrid or irregular warfare aimed at sowing chaos within the U.S. The two authors from the Manhattan Institute argue for “stronger enforcement of existing state antimasking laws and new federal action.”

Shapiro and Arm state the urgent need for modernizing antimasking statutes to criminalize masking while committing crimes or obstructing public order.

Their approach is outlined here:

  • First, the Justice Department should direct federal prosecutors to pursue enhanced sentences for masked criminals. Federal guidelines allow sentencing enhancements for obstruction of justice or premeditated conduct. A masked assault can lead to a two-level sentence increase, making it more likely that violent offenders serve real time.
  • Second, the Homeland Security Department should deploy Federal Protective Service officers to respond to masked protesters on federal property. DHS is already empowered to secure federal buildings and grounds. New regulations prohibit the use of masks to avoid identification while breaking the law on federal property. That authority now needs to be enforced aggressively.
  • Finally, the administration should make prosecution of federal crimes committed by masked offenders a priority. These offenses include assaulting a federalized National Guard member and damaging federal property. They already are federal crimes, but the added presence of a mask should be treated as a red flag and an aggravating factor. Prosecutors should move swiftly and law enforcement should make arrests public.

The two emphasized: “These measures wouldn’t criminalize protest, chill dissent or limit protected speech. They would send a clear signal: If you hide behind a mask to commit a crime or intimidate others, the federal government will hold you accountable.” 

They added: “Americans have every right to protest their government, but not to do so anonymously while terrorizing others and flouting the law.” 

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Court Overturns Douglass Mackey Meme Conviction

A federal appeals court has overturned the conviction of Douglass Mackey, the man prosecuted for posting satirical memes ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on July 9 that the government failed to prove Mackey knowingly participated in a conspiracy, a requirement under the statute used to charge him.

We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here.

Mackey had been found guilty in 2023 of violating 18 U.S.C. § 241, a law dating back to Reconstruction that punishes conspiracies to deprive individuals of their constitutional rights. Prosecutors claimed that Mackey’s memes, which joked that Hillary Clinton supporters could vote via text, were part of a coordinated scheme to suppress votes.

That case has now unraveled.

“The mere fact that Mackey posted the memes, even assuming that he did so with the intent to injure other citizens in the exercise of their right to vote, is not enough, standing alone, to prove a violation of Section 241,” wrote Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston in the court’s opinion. Because Section 241 applies only to conspiracies involving “two or more persons,” the government had to prove that Mackey entered into an agreement with others, a threshold it did not meet.

Prosecutors attempted to tie Mackey to private Twitter message groups such as “War Room” and “Madman #2,” where users discussed political memes.

The court found no evidence that Mackey saw, let alone participated in, any of the conversations that allegedly formed the conspiracy. “This the government failed to do,” the panel wrote, noting that “Mackey did not send any messages in the War Room in the two weeks before he tweeted the text-to-vote memes.”

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Understanding the RICO Charges in Atlanta

Since the beginning of 2023, prosecutors in Georgia have threatened to charge activists protesting against a planned police militarization facility known as “Cop City” with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Last week, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr indicted 61 people on RICO charges in Fulton County.

In indiscriminately lumping together scores of arrestees, many of whom have ostensibly never met, into a fabricated conspiracy case, the prosecution is attempting to criminalize protest itself. This case represents politically driven repression aimed at suppressing all forms of activism and dissent, in the style of Vladimir Putin. It should be of interest to anyone who is concerned about civil liberties such as the freedom to protest or the freedom to advocate against police brutality and authoritarianism or in favor of preserving the environment.

The indictment does not seem to indicate that prosecutors have any previously unreleased information at their disposal indicating the existence of a conspiracy, in the sense that the word is ordinarily employed. Rather, they have brought new charges against those whose names they already had as the result of previous arrests, and are now clumsily endeavoring to frame them as participants in a cohesive criminal enterprise.

The defendants include 42 people already charged with “terrorism” for allegedly participating in the movement to #StopCopCity, many of them on the basis of actions as simple as entering a forest or posting to social media; three more people already charged with felonies for allegedly distributing handbills; and another three people charged last May with “money laundering” and other crimes for organizing legal support for activists. None of these previous charges has resulted in a single conviction.

The only thing that connects all of these indictees is that they all appear to have been arrested or detained at some point, however randomly, on suspicion of protesting against the government’s plan to destroy the Weelaunee Forest.

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Virginia Enacts Law To Ban Nazi Symbols, Protects Sacred Swastika From Misrepresentation

Virginia has officially enacted House Bill 2783, which criminalises the display of Nazi symbols, including Hitler’s Hakenkreuz (Hooked Cross), when used with the intent to intimidate. The law, effective from July 1, makes such acts a Class 6 felony. What makes this legislation particularly historic is a culturally sensitive amendment that clearly differentiates Hitler’s Hakenkreuz, a symbol of hate, from the sacred Swastika, an ancient symbol of peace and prosperity revered by nearly two billion Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and other communities worldwide.

The final version of the Bill marks a major victory for minority communities in Virginia, particularly after a strong advocacy effort led by the Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) and allied groups. “We are pleased to see how Virginia is tackling growing hate while being sensitive to minority groups that revere the Swastika,” said Nikunj Trivedi, President of CoHNA.

He added, “Now the need of the hour is for the media, law enforcement, and educational institutions in Virginia to update their language to reflect this critical nuance and ensure fair treatment for all.”

Evolution of HB2783

Initially, HB2783 had a major cultural oversight—wrongly referring to the Nazi symbol as the Swastika. In reality, Hitler never used the word ‘Swastika’; his symbol was the ‘Hakenkreuz’—German for ‘Hooked Cross.’ The Bill’s early wording incorrectly suggested that the Nazi emblem was “commonly known as the Swastika,” inadvertently linking a sacred symbol to one of history’s darkest ideologies.

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Judge: Yardley Officials Illegally Deleted Criticism on Facebook

A federal judge has determined that leaders of Yardley Borough, Buck’s County, Pennsylvania, unlawfully silenced a resident when they deleted his comment from the local government’s Facebook page.

We obtained a copy of the order for you here.

The controversy centers on Earl Markey, a corporate trainer and active member of the local Republican committee.

In October 2022, Markey posted a comment on the Yardley Boro Facebook page urging voters to back a referendum that would have trimmed the borough council from seven members to five.

His comment was sharply critical of a sitting councilman.

Markey wrote, “Appointed Councilman Matt Curtin wants to raise property taxes by two mills. Stop unelected, out of touch investment bankers, like Matt Curtin, from volunteering our hard-earned money for higher taxes. Vote YES on the referendum to reduce the size of the Yardley Borough Council.”

Not long after, the comment disappeared.

The borough’s manager, Paula Johnson, labeled the post a personal attack. Council President Caroline Thompson approved its removal.

Markey saw this as a clear act of censorship and took legal action, filing a lawsuit against Thompson, Johnson, and the borough. He also named two other officials who were eventually removed from the case.

“For me that crossed a line,” Markey said. He described the deletion as “censorship by public officials.”

Although borough leaders tried to defuse the matter by letting Markey repost his comment, reimbursing his legal filing fee, and drafting a revised social media policy, Markey pressed forward with the lawsuit.

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South Dakota Follows Texas with Broader Online Digital ID Law

The Supreme Court’s endorsement of Texas’ age verification law for adult websites has paved the way for a surge of similar online digital ID measures across the country.

South Dakota is the first to follow, as its new statute requiring age verification or estimation for sites distributing adult content takes effect today.

However the South Dakota law is much broader and applies to a wider range of websites, not just those that have a large percentage of adult content.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The law applies broadly to any platform that regularly deals in explicit material, without setting a specific threshold for how much of the site’s content qualifies.

This contrasts with Texas’ approach, where the rule kicks in if at least one-third of a site’s material is deemed pornographic.

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