Tag: religion

‘Indefensible’: Courts finally scrutinize COVID vaccine mandates as religious infringement

Three years after COVID-19 vaccines became widely available to adults – at which point the CDC already knew they couldn’t stop transmission – courts are finally starting to put their foot down on the most basic legal question: Are mandates at least applied fairly, if not scientifically?

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals not only knocked down the University of Colorado medical school’s original and revised 2021 mandates for discriminating against employees seeking religious exemptions, but knocked the trial judge for “abuse of discretion” by reversing the burden of proof to moot the case.

The Anschutz campus, whose dental school recently created a diversity, equity and inclusion award, made an early pivotal decision on COVID vaccine mandates by scrutinizing the content as well as sincerity of beliefs among employees and students seeking exemptions.

“The Administration’s September 1 Policy is not neutral on its face; the September 24 Policy is not neutral in practice; and both substantially burden” the religious exercise of the anonymous 11 female and six male plaintiffs, according to the majority opinion by Judge Allison Eid, who replaced Neil Gorsuch when President Trump appointed him to the Supreme Court.

“It is manifestly unreasonable to think” the Sept. 24 policy “would reach precisely the same results … by accident,” Eid wrote. “The Administration had spent weeks or months drafting and implementing a policy hostile toward and discriminatory against certain religions, only to adopt a new, purportedly neutral policy that reached precisely the same results.”

University of California San Francisco epidemiologist Vinay Prasad celebrated the ruling for recognizing CU Anschutz administrators “set an indefensible policy,” while the plaintiffs’ lawyers at the Thomas More Society thanked the court for recognizing the university’s “value judgments … reeked of religious bigotry” and violated constitutional rights and “basic decency.”

The ruling is reminiscent of the Supreme Court’s narrow finding against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for “official expressions of hostility to religion” when it punished Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips for declining to make custom wedding cakes for gay couples based on his Christian view of marriage.

In the private sector, a high-profile vaccine mandate lawsuit by an actor fired from the Fox show “911” is heading to trial over whether Disney-owned 20th Television trampled Rockmond Dunbar’s views as a follower of the Church of Universal Wisdom, which The New York Times profiled in 2003 for its utility in circumventing childhood vaccination mandates.

“It appears that Disney vetted exemption applications on a case-by-case basis, investigating whether the religions constituted true religious institutions and whether applicants actually followed the beliefs,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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THE VATICAN HAS UPDATED ITS GUIDELINES FOR EVALUATING APPARITIONS AND SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENA. HERE’S WHAT THAT MEANS.

The Vatican has updated its process for evaluating visions of the Virgin Mary and other alleged supernatural phenomena in a new effort to prevent abuses and modernize its approaches amid the proliferation of digital technologies.

The announcement, made during a press conference in Rome last week, represents the first update to the Vatican’s procedures since 1978 and highlights growing concerns about the exploitation of people’s beliefs using technology. However, the new guidelines presented on Friday emphasize caution against making definitive declarations that discount such phenomena unless clear indications of fabrication can be discerned.

The revised norms presented on Friday focus on the moral issues involved in the exploitation of people’s faith through the presentation of alleged supernatural experiences, which can be punishable under canonical law.

Traditionally, the Catholic Church has investigated claims involving various forms of supernatural phenomena, some of which have historically impacted the faith. Among the most famous examples include a series of purported Marian apparitions witnessed by three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal, in 1917.

Decades later, a group of six children in Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, claimed to have also seen and communicated with the Virgin Mary over several days in the summer of 1981, during a series of apparitional visions in which she purportedly appeared with the Infant Christ in her arms.

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University of Colorado Vaccine Mandate “Motivated by Religious Animus” and “Unconstitutional”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued a ruling that the University of Colorado Anschutz School Medicine’s refusal to allow religious exemptions to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate was “motivated by religious animus” and unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s Religious Clauses.

The Court ruled that the University’s vaccine mandates granted “exemptions for some religions, but not others, because of differences in their religious doctrines” and granted “secular exemptions on more favorable terms than religious exemptions.” Both of these things were illegal.

The Court reaffirmed the First Amendment principle that government cannot test the sincerity of employees’ religious beliefs.

The University’s mandates violated “clearly established” constitutional rights, the court held.

The 55-page ruling, issued on 7 May, was a reversal of a previous lower-court decision.

The appeal was filed in March 2022 by the Thomas More Society on behalf of 17 faculty and students who claimed that the university refused to respect their religious objections to taking the vaccine.

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Vatican preparing ‘guidelines’ for ‘apparitions’, ‘other supernatural phenomena’

The Vatican is preparing to release a document giving guidance on how to discern supernatural phenomena. 

The Holy See Press Office announced the upcoming document will be published May 17 with a live-streamed press conference featuring Prefect for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández.

Fernández has previously said the dicastery is “in the process of finalizing a new text with clear guidelines and norms for the discernment of apparitions and other phenomena,” according to the National Catholic Register.

An “apparition” refers to an instance in which a divine entity — such as a saint, the Virgin Mary, or Christ himself — makes itself known to a person on Earth. The concept is a recurring theme in the Bible and most Christian denominations affirm the belief that such brushes with the supernatural can still occur today in various capacities.

The Catholic Church urges “extreme prudence” before ascribing phenomena to a supernatural force, warning that being too quick to attribute divine origin to explainable occurrences can damage the faith and warp belief.

Alleged apparitions are usually documented and scrutinized by the diocesan bishop’s office and then forwarded to Rome for further investigation.

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Michigander Who Allegedly Told Cops He Wanted To ‘Blow Up’ Satanic Temple Indicted On Explosives Charges

A Michigan man who allegedly revealed he had explosive devices because he wanted to blow up The Satanic Temple (TST) in Massachusetts last year faced explosives-related charges Wednesday, according to federal prosecutors.

Luke Isaac Terpstra, 30, of Grant, Michigan, “has been charged with transporting an explosive with the intent to kill, injure, or intimidate individuals or to unlawfully damage or destroy a building,” according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Michigan. Terpstra was also separately charged with illegally possessing a destructive device, according to the statement.

Terpstra built several improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and transported them together with some firearms and ammunition from Michigan to the TST location in Salem, Massachusetts in Sept. 2023 with a self-professed intention to “blow up” the temple, prosecutors alleged in the statement.

Michigan’s Grant Police Department arrested Terpstra Jan. 2 following an investigation and charged him with Explosives — Possession of Bombs with Unlawful Intent, according to a mid-January joint statement by Salem Mayor Dominick Pangallo and Salem Police Chief Lucas Miller. He appeared to have visited Salem to plan the attack but did not seem to have contacts in Salem, the joint statement observed.

The arresting officers found Terpstra with IED-making materials such as “a plastic container with coins attached to it and a piece of cannon fuse coming out of the lid; numerous metal carbon dioxide (CO2) cartridges; PVC pipe; ammonium nitrate; and hobby fuses,” according to the prosecutors’ statement.

Terpstra’s mother and stepfather aided the investigation, according to WZZM 13.

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Church of the Eagle and the Condor Can Now Drink Ayahuasca Legally in the US

The prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor has manifested. Following a years-long legal battle, the Church of the Eagle and the Condor has successfully settled with the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to legally use ayahuasca as an integral part of its religious practices, according to a press release. 

The Church of the Eagle and the Condor is officially the first non-Christian church to obtain such legal protections. This also marks the first time in history that a church has received federal authorization to import and facilitate ayahuasca without going to trial. This historic settlement has promising implications for other Indigenous-rooted and syncretic faiths hoping to work with entheogens.

“This settlement reaffirms our right to practice our spirituality as we have always known,” says Belinda P. Eriacho, board member of the Church of the Eagle and the Condor, and member of the Diné / A:shwii lineages. “It is a recognition by the US government and an important milestone in honoring and validating Indigenous belief systems.”

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Ukrainians are God’s chosen people – Zelensky

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has proclaimed that God is an “ally” of Ukraine in the conflict with Russia. Despite his invoking of the Almighty, Zelensky has led a crackdown on the Orthodox Church for the last two years.

As Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter on Sunday, Zelensky released a video address from Kiev’s Saint Sophia Cathedral, in which he accused Russia of “breaking all the commandments.”

“The world sees it, God knows it,” he said. “And we believe God has a chevron with the Ukrainian flag on his shoulder. So, with such an ally, life will definitely win over death.”

Zelensky’s appeal to Christians came as Ukraine’s parliament examines legislation that would close down the country’s largest Christian church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). While the law has sat in parliament for months, Zelensky’s government has moved to restrict the Church’s activity since the conflict began in 2022.

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Cosmic Rays, Tree Rings, and the Real Story of the Building of Jerusalem

A new archaeological study of ancient Jerusalem is forcing experts to reevaluate some of their past assumptions about the history of that holy city. New research has presented evidence that Biblical accounts of that history are more accurate than previously believed, and that Jerusalem was already a growing city even before the reign of the legendary King David, who ruled the United Kingdom of Israel in the early 10th century BC.

In a report just published in the journal PNAS, a team of archaeologists and researchers from the University of Tel Aviv, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Weizmann Institute of Science explain the exciting and revolutionary results of their detailed study, which emerged from the application of newly refined radiocarbon dating technology. With the most accurate dating results ever obtained from the old city of Jerusalem, the archaeologists claim to have shown infrastructure projects there were initiated centuries earlier than other research had suggested.

“Until now, most researchers have linked Jerusalem’s growth to the west, to the period of King Hezekiah – just over 2,700 years ago,” said study co-author Yuval Gadot, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv University, in an interview quoted in the Daily Mail Online.

“The conventional assumption to date has been that the city expanded due to the arrival of refugees from the Kingdom of Israel in the north, following the Assyrian exile. However, the new findings strengthen the view that Jerusalem grew in size and spread towards Mount Zion already in the ninth century BC. This was during the reign of King Jehoash – a hundred years before the Assyrian exile.”

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Ohio Pastor Criminally Charged for Letting People Sleep In Church. Again.

An Ohio pastor is once again being brought up on criminal charges for sheltering people in his church.

On Friday, the city of Bryan, Ohio refiled charges against Chris Avell, the pastor of Dad’s Place, for fire and zoning code violations related to his operation of a 24-hour “Rest and Refresh” ministry at the church’s downtown building.

The city argues the church’s 24-hour ministry is in fact just a residential homeless shelter, which is not allowed at the commercially zoned property. The fire code violations make it not only unauthorized but also unsafe. Each violation, if not corrected, is punishable by a $1,000 daily fine.

“We appreciate that Dad’s Place has tried to help people in need,” said Bryan Mayor Carrie Schlade in a statement. “But putting these people’s lives at risk in the case of a fire or other dangers is not helping them.”

“Here we are with the pastor facing new criminal charges for caring for people inside his church,” First Liberty Institute attorney Jeremy Dys, who is representing Dad’s Place, told Reason in an interview on Friday.

Reason covered Avell’s case back in January when he was first charged with 18 criminal counts for similar zoning and fire code violations.

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Rutherford Institute Threatens First Amendment Lawsuit Over Censorship of Religious Content From High School Valedictorian’s Graduation Speech

The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of a Florida high school valedictorian whose graduation speech was censored by school officials to alter and remove religious content.

Lucas Hudson, a valedictorian of the Collegiate Academy at Armwood High School in Hillsborough County, Fla., was ordered by school officials to remove religious references from his graduation speech in which he thanked the people who helped shape his character, reflected on how quickly time goes by, and urged people to use whatever time they have to love others and serve the God who loves us. School officials gave Lucas an ultimatum: either remove most of his speech’s religious content or he would not be speaking at all. In coming to Lucas’ defense, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute warn that the school’s actions violate the rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment, Florida law, and the School District’s policy, and could expose the school to a lawsuit.

“If America’s schools are to impart principles of freedom and democracy to future generations, they must start by respecting the constitutional rights of their students,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “While the government may not establish or compel a particular religion, it also may not silence and suppress religious speech merely because others might take offense. People are free to ignore, disagree with, or counter the religious speech of others, but the government cannot censor private religious speech.”

As valedictorian of the Class of 2024 for the Collegiate Academy at Armwood High School, Lucas Hudson was provided the opportunity to give a graduation speech in May 2024. Lucas’s planned speech thanked the people who helped shape his character, reflected on how quickly times goes by, and briefly urged people to use the short amount of time we have to love others and to serve the God who loves us and who sent his son, Jesus, to save us. However, after submitting his speech to the principal, Lucas was told that his speech would not be accepted unless he reduced and changed the religious content. Although Lucas modified his speech, the religious message was still not acceptable to school officials who told Lucas that he needed to “make appropriate adjustments” to his speech by the next day or he would not be speaking at all. Lucas then changed his speech to only include a short sentence about the privilege of knowing the God who saved him.

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