Tag: religious freedom

Colorado Christian Camp Wins Legal Victory Against State’s Radical Transgender Rules

Colorado officials have reached a settlement in a federal lawsuit with a Christian summer camp, allowing the camp to continue operating according to its religious beliefs on biological sex.

The Colorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC) announced a new regulation early this year requiring resident camps to provide access to restrooms, showers, dressing areas, and sleeping facilities that align with campers’ gender identities rather than their biological sex. The CDEC said the regulation was based on rules from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission implementing the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.

The Federalist recently reported the story of IdRaHaJe, a cherished Christian camp in Colorado that has embraced children of all faiths for 77 years. This camp sought a religious exemption from the CDEC to maintain its biblical beliefs about biological sex. Unfortunately, the CDEC not only denied this request but also directed the camp to seek legal assistance, putting IdRaHaJe at risk of losing its license and facing closure due to its refusal to conform to the state’s leftist gender regulations.

In response, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), serving as IdRaHaJe’s legal counsel, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. ADF aimed to protect IdRaHaJe’s right to religious freedom and its mission to operate according to its core beliefs.

Just a month following the lawsuit, ADF announced a significant victory: IdRaHaJe and the state of Colorado reached a favorable settlement. As part of this agreement, Colorado committed not to take any enforcement action against Camp IdRaHaJe for alleged violations of the gender identity requirements. The CDEC clarified on its website that “churches, synagogues, mosques, or any other place that is principally used for religious purposes, including Camp IdRaHaJe,” are exempt from the requirements. This outcome is crucial. It allows IdRaHaJe and other religious organizations to continue their vital work of ministering in alignment with their faith and understanding of biological sex.

The settlement is welcoming news for Cathy, a Colorado mom who has sent her two kids to Camp IdRaHaJe multiple times over the years. She shared that her kids attending IdRaHaJe was “an experience like no other summer camp, helped build on the foundation of faith we have, and encouraged them to make their own choices in their faith journey!”

The response from the CDEC was noteworthy. On its website, it attempted to spin its loss as a win, highlighting that Camp IdRaHaJe voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit. Yet, the CDEC conveniently ignored the crucial fact that the ADF filed a voluntary notice of dismissal as a direct result of the settlement. Furthermore, the CDEC shifted its narrative, asserting that its gender-identity regulation has never targeted or restricted religious organizations like Camp IdRaHaJe.

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Utah Passed a Religious Freedom Law. Then Cops Went After This Psychedelic Church.

When Bridger Lee Jensen opened a spiritual center in Provo, Utah, he contacted city officials to let them know the religious group he had founded, Singularism, would be conducting ceremonies involving a tea made from psilocybin mushrooms. “Singularism is optimistic that through partnership and dialogue, it can foster an environment that respects diversity and upholds individual rights,” Jensen wrote in a September 2023 letter to the Provo City Council and Mayor Michelle Kaufusi. Seeking to “establish an open line of communication” with local officials, Jensen invited them to ask questions and visit the center.

Jensen’s optimism proved to be unfounded. The city did not respond to his overture until more than a year later, when Provo police searched the Singularism center and seized the group’s sacrament: about 450 grams of psilocybin mushrooms from Oregon. The seizure resulted from an investigation in which an undercover officer posed as a would-be Singularism facilitator.

That raid happened in November 2024, less than eight months after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, had signed the state’s version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The state law likely protects Singularism’s psychedelic rituals, a federal judge ruled in February. U.S. District Judge Jill Parrish granted Jensen’s request for a preliminary injunction against city and county officials, ordering them to return the mushrooms and refrain from further interference with the group’s “sincere religious use of psilocybin” while the case is pending.

“In this litigation, the religious-exercise claims of a minority entheogenic religion put the State of Utah’s commitment to religious freedom to the test,” Parrish wrote in Jensen v. Utah County. If such a commitment “is to mean anything,” she said, it must protect “unpopular or unfamiliar religious groups” as well as “popular or familiar ones.”

Parrish noted that “the very founding of the State of Utah reflects the lived experience of that truth by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” In light of that history, she suggested, “it is ironic” that “not long after enacting its RFRA to provide special protections for religious exercise, the State of Utah should so vigorously deploy its resources, particularly the coercive power of its criminal-justice system, to harass and shut down a new religion it finds offensive practically without any evidence that [the] religion’s practices have imposed any harms on its own practitioners or anyone else.”

Under the federal RFRA, which Congress enacted in 1993, the government may not “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless it shows that the burden is “the least restrictive means” of furthering a “compelling governmental interest.” In 2006, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that RFRA protected the American branch of a syncretic Brazil-based church from federal interference with its rituals, even though the group’s sacramental tea, ayahuasca, contained the otherwise illegal psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine.

The Supreme Court has said RFRA cannot be applied to state and local governments. Laws like Utah’s, which 29 states have enacted, aim to fill that gap.

The defendants in Jensen’s case—Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray, the county, and the city of Provo—argued that Utah’s RFRA did not apply to Singularism, which they portrayed as a drug trafficking operation disguised as a religion. Parrish rejected that characterization. “Based on all the evidence in the record,” she wrote, “the court has no difficulty concluding that Plaintiffs are sincere in their beliefs and that those beliefs are religious in nature.”

Parrish also concluded that “preventing Singularism’s adherents from pursuing their spiritual voyages” imposed a substantial burden on their religious freedom that was not “the least restrictive means” of addressing the government’s public safety concerns. She noted that Utah allows religious use of peyote and has authorized “behavioral health treatment programs” in which patients can receive psilocybin.

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‘Not a cult’: Holy war erupts as judge bans mom from taking daughter to Christian church

A mother whose constitutional rights were violated by a Maine judge hearing a custody dispute has taken the fight to the state Supreme Court.

The case involves a radical ruling from Jennifer Nofsinger, a judge who heard a custody case, who ordered that the mother was not allowed to take her 11-year-old daughter to an evangelical Christian church.

That was based on “objections” from the child’s father, who like the mother and daughter was not identified in the report from Liberty Counsel, which is working on the case.

Chairman Mat Staver said, “Calvary Chapel is not a cult. This custody order banning a mother from taking her child to a Christian church because of its biblical teachings regarding marriage and human sexuality violates the First Amendment. The custody order cannot prohibit the mother from taking her daughter to church. The implications of this order pose a serious threat to religious freedom.”

The judge granted the father, who objects to the Christian teachings of the church, “the sole right to govern the girl’s religious activities.”

The high court is being asked to reverse the “unlawful custody order” and to restore the mother’s First Amendment right to pass on her religious beliefs

The judge adopted the ideology of a leftist teacher from California who was hired by the father. That teacher, Janja Lalich, told the judge “that cults usually have a charismatic, authoritarian leader who teach about a ‘transcendent belief system’ that offers answers, and ‘promises some sort of salvation.’ She further testified that she had ‘studied’ Calvary Chapel Church and found that the church’s pastor was a ‘charismatic’ speaker, spoke ‘authoritatively’ in his messages, and that he asserted his messages were objective truth.,” Liberty Counsel reported.

That meant, Lalich claimed, the church was “cultic.”

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Amish children in NY face compulsory vaccination as court crushes religious freedom

In a chilling blow to religious freedom, Amish children in New York are now being forced to receive vaccinations against their families’ deeply held beliefs—under threat of massive fines and exclusion from their own private schools.

The ruling, handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on March 3, 2025, marks a dark milestone in government overreach, stripping one of America’s most peaceful religious communities of their constitutional rights.

The Amish, known for their steadfast commitment to faith and self-sufficiency, have long resisted government-mandated medical interventions. For centuries, they have lived apart from modern society, rejecting outside interference in their way of life.

But under New York’s repeal of religious exemptions—a law pushed through in the wake of a 2019 measles outbreak—the Amish were given an impossible choice: violate their conscience by vaccinating their children or face crippling financial penalties and educational exile.

And now, the state has made its position brutally clear. Reports indicate that Amish families and schools have already been hit with fines totaling $118,000 for refusing to comply.

The Second Circuit’s ruling dismissed Amish objections, arguing that the repeal of religious exemptions is “neutral” and applies to all children, regardless of whether they attend public, private, or parochial schools. The court insisted that the law serves a compelling public health interest—despite carving out medical exemptions for those with a doctor’s note while denying the same protection to those with religious objections.

This double standard is glaring. The Amish aren’t asking for special treatment—they’re simply asking to be left alone to live by their faith, a right the First Amendment is supposed to protect.

Reaction to the ruling has been swift and furious. Social media has erupted with outrage, with posts on X calling it a “horrific violation of basic freedoms.” One user warned, “If they can force this on the Amish, no one’s rights are safe.” Another pointed out the hypocrisy: “New York claims it’s about safety, but they’ll let unvaccinated kids in with a doctor’s note—just not a prayer.”

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Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion Die in America: Zionism is Now the Only Religion Allowed in the U.S.

Protests against the genocide happening in Gaza have continued to increase across America, with thousands of students in American universities and colleges protesting against the daily mass murders of innocent civilians and children happening in Israel.

Last week, over 100 students were arrested at Columbia University in New York, with many students at other campuses all across the nation joining them in protest this past weekend.

The arrests of over 100 students at Columbia University last week came one day after Columbia University President Nemat Shafik appeared before a U.S. Federal Congressional hearing on “Antisemitism”.

She was specifically asked by Congresswoman Lisa McClain if the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” was antisemitic or not.

Dr. Shafik had obviously prepared for this question, because it was an answer to this question that resulted in the resignations of the President of Harvard University and the President of the University of Pennsylvania just a few months earlier.

Perhaps guessing that Dr. Shafik had prepared for this question, Congresswoman McClain added a new twist to the question: “or long live the intifada“, which is a completely different statement.

If Dr. Shafik had been allowed time to fully address both questions, perhaps she would have differentiated between the two, but as you will hear, she had no opportunity to fully answer the question, and was restricted to either a “yes” or “no” response.

(Also, what is that medallion that the Congresswoman is wearing around her neck that she clearly wants to display to everyone??)

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Biden administration planning lists of employees seeking ‘religious’ vaccine exemptions

An obscure federal agency has proposed creating a database capturing the names and “personal religious information” of government employees who submit “religious accommodation requests” to be exempted from the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

At least seven other federal agencies, including five Cabinet departments, are apparently setting up similar “personal religious information” databases, according to an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in the District.

The federal Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia, or CSOSA, published a “notice of a new system of records” in the Federal Register on Tuesday.

The agency, which supervises defendants awaiting trial as well as parolees, aims to “reduce recidivism” and “integrate offenders into the community by connecting them with resources and interventions.”

The federal departments of Treasury, the Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, and Transportation, as well as the General Services Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission, have each published proposed rule-makings to implement “systems of records” tracking their workers’ religious accommodation requests.

While there is “some data collection that is likely and legally permissible under Title VII, when an individual at a covered agency requests a religious accommodation,” Sarah Parshall Perry, a legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Constitutional Government, said, “we have not seen it on a broad scale like this ever.”

President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal workers took effect Nov. 22 under an executive order he issued Sept. 9. The executive order said its terms were “subject to such exceptions as required by law.”

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Gov’t helicopter discovers ‘unauthorized’ church service, pastor put in handcuffs

The moment that local governments in the Western world began to issue guidance or full-on mandates for religious gatherings in the early days of the pandemic, many were concerned that society had stepped onto a slippery slope.

Fast-forward 15 months later, and we’re seeing pastors arrested in front of their children after their “underground” church services were discovered by a police helicopter.

This is the stuff of tyranny and totalitarianism, not Western-style democracy. Yet here we are.

This week, Pastor Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church was arrested outside his home as his distressed children cried, all for holding a church service discovered the day before by a police helicopter.

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