Tag: religion

Federal Court Rules Against Amish Families in Religious Exemption Case — Will Supreme Court Have the Last Word?

A federal court last week ruled against a group of Amish parents who sought religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements for their children — a ruling that legal experts suggest may lead to a U.S. Supreme Court showdown that could determine the future of religious exemptions nationwide.

In its ruling in Miller v. McDonald, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said New York State’s law eliminating religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements is “neutral and generally applicable,” doesn’t discriminate against specific religious practices and furthers the state’s interest in protecting the public from disease.

The plaintiffs, a group of parents and representatives of Amish schools in New York, sued New York’s Department of Health and Department of Education in 2023, alleging the state’s law barring religious exemptions violates the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause under the First and 14th Amendments.

The parents face $118,000 in fines for noncompliance with the state’s vaccination requirements.

Last week’s decision was the second time the 2nd Circuit ruled against the plaintiffs. The same court previously dismissed the suit in 2024, upholding a decision by another federal court earlier that year.

In December 2025, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the 2nd Circuit, asking it to review constitutional questions arising out of a separate ruling, Mahmoud v. Taylor, in 2024. In that case, the Supreme Court found that parents have the right to request an exemption for their children from LGBTQ curriculum on religious grounds.

According to The Washington Post, last week’s ruling in Miller v. McDonald may “set the stage for a potential Supreme Court battle over vaccine mandates,” citing legal experts who suggested the court is likely to accept the case for review on constitutional grounds and in light of the Mahmoud v. Taylor decision.

Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University professor of health law and an outspoken vaccine proponent, told the Post he expects the Supreme Court to “reverse the appellate court’s decision” if it chooses to review the case.

A review could result in a ruling that would “allow religious vaccine exemptions nationwide,” the Post reported.

The Post reported last month that the Supreme Court has signaled that it “may be open to a constitutional claim based on the lack of a religious exemption for vaccine mandates in New York.”

A Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Amish plaintiffs would be “the anti-vaccine movement’s biggest win,” the Post wrote.

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Society of St. Pius X’s Priest Stands Defiant Against Leo XIV’s Excommunication: ‘A Future Pope Will Welcome Us Back’

Popes come and go.

We have reported on how leftist Pope Leo XIV – through his Holly Office head, the highly controversial Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández – a Pope Francis holdover – has excommunicated the members of the conservative Society of St. Pius X.

They were declared schismatic after four bishops were ordained without Pope Leo’s approval.

But if anyone thought that they’d bow their heads and submit, think again. Reuters calls them unrepentant, we call them defiant.

Reuters reported:

“A priest from a Catholic splinter sect that was excommunicated ‌earlier this week told worshippers on Sunday that the breakaway group would be welcomed back to the Church under a different pope.

[…] ‘There will one day be another pope ​who opens the door and welcomes us back. Just like Pope Benedict’, Georg Kopf ​said at a mass held in the north-eastern Swiss town of Wil.”

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Muslim Texas Nurse Fired After Posting TikTok Video Suggesting She Would Not Treat Patients if They Watch Fox News

A Muslim Texas nurse named “Ahlam” was fired after posting a TikTok video suggesting she would not treat patients if they watch Fox News.

Libs of TikTok exposed the nurse, posted her TikTok to X and tagged her employer, UTMB Health in Houston, Texas.

The nurse posted a video of herself ‘peacing out’ and refusing to treat a patient based on their political views.

“When I walk into my patient’s room and Fox News is blasting,” the nurse said in the caption of video showing her backing away and leaving the room.

According to Libs of TikTok, Ahlam’s social media account has been scrubbed and made private.

On Thursday, UTMB responded to Libs of TikTok and said the nurse was suspended pending an investigation into her behavior.

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Mamdani Gives 250th Anniversary Speech, and Boy, Does This Guy Hate America

New York City’s Communist Twelver Shi’ite Mayor Zohran Mamdani has bestowed upon a waiting world his speech commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, and it is just as small, petty, grievance-laden, fantasy-based, and angry as you’d expect a speech from a man who hates America to be.

The visual effect was even worse, as Mamdani delivered the speech while seated at a desk that seemed to be turned the wrong way around, while surrounded by a social studies-book array of glum-looking, unsmiling, unhappy people, all black and brown and hijabed and whatnot and all forlornly holding small flags of the country their mayor despises, with a single grim-faced white guy standing in the back (as is his place). But even if one didn’t avail oneself of the joys of watching Mamdani, who was just as grim as his prop companions, what the young Commie mayor said was bad enough.

America, in Mamdani’s view, is a sad place where heartless, racist, xenophobic plutocrats rule the roost and oppress the rest of us to the degree that you wonder why anyone from elsewhere would want to immigrate in the first place. Mamdani does hold out some hope in the end, saying that the foes of these cruel tyrants can throw off their yoke and remake this unhappy land in their own image. And that, of course, is just what Mamdani has set out to do.

Mamdani began by painting a verbal picture of the “land, lush and teeming with life” to which newcomers arrived, only to encounter “men waiting at the docks to take them into bondage” and “tenements rife with squalor.” As you’d expect, he claimed that the Declaration of Independence established “the ideals our nation still strives to fulfill,” with no indication of how marvelously it has fulfilled them already, or how it has inspired the world in doing so.

The mayor goes on to fill in all the expected blanks, telling the story of how a freed slave made a new life for himself, thereby showing America to be “a place each of us has the power to make.” Immigrants poured into America, not yet seeing “the nativism they would face — the jobs they would be refused, the landlords who would not rent to them, and the abject labor and living conditions they would withstand.” Still, they kept coming.

Mamdani goes on to mock and misrepresent the idea of American exceptionalism, and here he begins to claim that “we are told” a series of things that few people, if any, have ever been told. “We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else.” On the contrary, in less fractious days, we were told that we were “richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else,” because we were a uniquely just society in which anyone could make something of himself.

Mamdani, however, couldn’t possibly admit that without betraying his Marxist ideas, which tell him that America is inherently oppressive, and his Islamic beliefs, which tell him that only a Sharia society is truly just.

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Vatican Excommunicates Members of Conservative Church Group Society of St. Pius X for Ordaining Bishops Without Pope Leo’s Approval

A 21st-century schism?

The highly controversial Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, head of the Holy Office and a Pope Francis holdover, has issued a decree on behalf of leftist Pope Leo XIV saying that ​priests and lay Catholics from a traditionalist Catholic group that the bishops ordained with Leo’s approval are in a schism ‌with the wider Church, and are now excommunicated.

Reuters reported:

“In a strong decree, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the top watchdog authority for the 1.4-billion-member Church, also warned Catholics globally that the Swiss-based Society of St. Pius X now celebrated the sacraments illicitly.”

The group cannot officially officiate marriages or hear confessions validly, ​the decree says.

“It is a strict teaching of the Church that only the pope can authorize the consecration of new bishops, in ​order to maintain the Church’s ties to Jesus’ 12 apostles, who are considered the first priests and bishops.

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Police Stop North Carolina Church Massacre Arresting Man Who Showed Up with Flamethrowers, Crossbows, More Than 500 Rounds of Ammo

Police arrested a man on Sunday who was apparently attempting to execute a mass casualty terrorist attack at a church in North Carolina.  

He faces charges of possession of a weapon of mass destruction and impersonation of a law enforcement officer.

The suspect, 44-year-old William S. Milliken III, was found by police in the parking lot of the Wesley Memorial Methodist Church in High Point, North Carolina, on Sunday morning, after a 911 caller reported an armed man wearing camouflage clothing.

According to authorities, the man was found with a “launcher resembling a handgun, flame throwers, and more than 500 rounds of ammunition.”

“He was wearing a plate carrier, which is a type of body armor. Milliken’s charges include possession of weapon of mass destruction, impersonation of law enforcement officer, and possession of control substance schedule II,” High Point police said in a news release.

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BBC refuses to report on The Rape Gang Inquiry because it has to make “complex choices”

Today, the story broke about a Muslim rape gang ringleader, who was convicted of 30 child rapes, who “cannot be deported” despite being stripped of his British citizenship – thanks to a rule in the Immigration Act 1971.  Instead, this child rapist will be let loose into the British community.

It’s not only legislation which is protecting the perpetrators and putting the community at risk. 

Today, Rupert Lowe, a Member of Parliament (“MP”) for Restore Britain, revealed evidence of the protection the BBC affords Muslim rape gangs.

The BBC has not reported on the findings of the independent Rape Gang Inquiry because, the BBC says, “complex choices” have to be made for editorial and practical reasons.

You can read the BBC’s excuses HERE.

The following is a tweet posted by Mr. Lowe, commenting on the BBC’s explanation.

The BBC has issued an official explanation on why it has failed to cover our rape gang inquiry.

“Complex choices” are made for editorial and practical reasons. These choices “should not be taken as indicative of bias.” Their words.

But the BBC were very quick to cover malicious complaints against our inquiry, in an attempt to smear our efforts. They were then forced to later apologise for how they covered the story.

So, either the inquiry is worth reporting on, or it’s not. They can’t pick and choose.

We’re told “complex choices” are made, meaning that efforts to uncover the industrial rape of young girls is not near the top of list.

Let’s take a look at a few stories on the main BBC news page, right now…

  • ‘Osaka pays ‘love and respect to Japan’ in Wimbledon kimono’
  • ‘Why £15 durians are being sold at half price – or given away for free’
  • ‘We had packed lunches every day for 10 years and retired at 40’

Are these stories more important than the rape gang inquiry? I think not.

You cannot hate the BBC enough. I expect no fair coverage from them; I’ve stopped expecting it. But the BBC is funded by the British people. Their continued suppression of our inquiry is a disgrace.

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San Francisco Archdiocese Agrees To $395 Million Abuse Settlement

The Archdiocese of San Francisco has agreed to pay $395 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by church officials, in what the plaintiffs’ lawyers described as the largest per-survivor settlement.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys said on June 29 that San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will have to write an apology letter to each survivor as part of the settlement.

The settlement also requires the archdiocese to implement a series of child protection and transparency reforms.

The settlement comes three years after the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy and will cover approximately 530 survivors of child sexual abuse.

It is the latest agreement over clergy sexual abuse claims. In 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a record $880 million settlement.

This settlement follows years of back-and-forth mediation between the Archdiocese and the Survivors’ Creditors Committee.

The law firm representing the survivors said the $395 million “stands as the largest per survivor settlement in any clerical bankruptcy.”

“As a part of the settlement, the Archdiocese is turning over (assigning) its rights under the insurance policies for the survivors to recover additional damages against all the insurance companies who refused to abide by their contractual responsibilities to the Archdiocese and the survivors,” it said.

“I’ve been working with survivors for decades, and I’ve never heard of anything quite as significant, as rigorous, as robust as what is being required of the Archdiocese of San Francisco,” said Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing dozens of child sexual abuse victims.

The proposed 14-point settlement plan calls for appointing an independent child protection consultant with full access to archdiocesan records, publishing findings and a more complete list of credibly accused offenders, creating a survivor-sensitive public archive, and strengthening protections for whistleblowers and reporters.

It also calls for banning mandatory nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) in abuse settlements and prohibiting private digital communications between adults and children.

Margie O’Driscoll sued the archdiocese, alleging she was sexually abused almost 50 years ago by a priest while she was a student at Marin Catholic High School in Kentfield, a community north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

“I, like every survivor, have carried this pain and shame along like a ball and chain for a very, very long time,” O’Driscoll said during a news conference.

“Ashamed and confused about what happened, scorned by the archdiocese, and sometimes not even believed by family and friends, and I think today shame is gonna change sides.”

“We believe this proposal provides a path toward fair compensation for survivors who have borne the weight of this abuse for a lifetime,” Rev. Salvatore J. Cordileone, archbishop of San Francisco, said in a June 29 statement.

The Archdiocese of San Francisco, led by Cordileone, serves more than 400,000 Catholics in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin Counties.

“The entire Catholic family is called to unite and share in the work of making amends through this proposed settlement. We have a moral obligation to bring some level of healing and reconciliation to those who deserve our unwavering respect, attention, and prayers,” he said.

“With stringent preventative measures and trainings now in place for decades, the hope is that this proposal will allow us collectively to move forward by continuing the important ministries to the faithful and community members that rely on our services and charity.

“While the vast majority of sexual abuse allegations associated with this bankruptcy were from many decades ago, we accept full responsibility for what happened, and I sincerely apologize to all those who have been harmed.”

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Northern Ireland: Historic Catholic Convent Near St Patrick’s Tomb Destroyed in Deliberate Fire as Christian Europe Burns

A historic former Catholic convent near the burial place of Saint Patrick in Northern Ireland was devastated by a deliberate fire Sunday night, forcing more than 70 firefighters into an overnight battle to save the adjacent parish church.

The blaze, according to a report from Life Site News, broke out at the former Convent of Mercy in Downpatrick, County Down, at around 7 p.m. on June 28. By the time emergency crews arrived, the building was already engulfed in a well-developed fire.

The Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service said the cause is believed to have been deliberate. No injuries were reported, but the damage to one of Downpatrick’s most recognizable Catholic landmarks was severe.

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Dem Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia Claims Transphobia is ‘An Offense to the Glory of God’

Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, a Democrat, recently spoke to members of a synagogue in Los Angeles and claimed that transphobia is violence against humanity and divinity and an offense to the glory of God.

First, transphobia is a stupid word. People who object to the trans agenda do not fear trans people. They just don’t want it pushed on their kids in schools. They don’t want their wives and daughters to have to share intimate spaces with biological men.

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