A pastor’s lawsuit against the state of Oklahoma over its ‘Rain God’ license plate can proceed, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has ruled.
The court said that Keith Cressman’s suite contains a “plausible compelled speech claim.”
Among the topics in today’s Religion News Briefs: Affinity Fraud (and how you can protect yourself against it). Missionary Kids speak out about abuses they have suffered. And we meet a woman who lost her religion — and subsequently her childen. She is now battling a rabbinical court to regain custody.
Plus: 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court banned prayer in school religion can be found everywhere in public school environments.
Louisiana passes bill to allow prayer in public schools. Former Manson Family member denied parole for 20th time.
And the Miss World Competition has scrapped its bikini segment after demands by Muslim hardliners.
In today’s Religion News Briefs: Ritualistic murderer Robin Marie Murphy has been denied parole. A Calvary Chapel pastor sues one of his sons, who accuses him of abuse, for defamation.
Also: Dominican Republic jails leader of a doomsday cult. Meanwhile, Mexican authorities detain the leader of religious sect that opposes secular education. Plus lost more…
In today’s issue: Unitarian faith growing throughout the USA. Cheerleaders’ Scripture-Quoting Football Signs Face Constitutional Challenge. And a poll shows that most Americans doubt Scientology is a true religion.
Plus… Filipino students hold naked protest In Manila against Innocence Of Muslims film.
The War Memorial Protection Act passed on a voice vote in the Republican-controlled House but faces uncertainty in the Senate.
Religious workers can’t sue for job discrimination, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
They said that churches — not courts — are the best judges of whether clergy and other religious employees should be fired or hired.
The Rev. Cary K. Gordon has a prayer he recites as he campaigns against the three Iowa Supreme Court justices who are up for retention in next month’s election.
“Dear God,” he says, “please allow the IRS to attack my church, so I can take them all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Gordon, an associate pastor at Cornerstone World Outreach in Sioux City, says he will defy federal law this month when he urges the congregation to vote to not retain the three justices, who participated in a unanimous ruling that allowed same-sex couples to wed. His mass mailing to 1,000 church leaders in September prompted one national religious liberty group to file a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service.
Advocates of the separation of church and state and some religious leaders say Gordon’s plan is illegal, immoral and an attempt to falsely frame his dispute as a freedom-of-speech violation. The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C., called Gordon’s actions one of the most outrageous attempts to politicize a church that he has ever seen.
Others, such as Jeff Mullen, senior pastor of Point of Grace Church in Waukee, are urging Iowa pastors to communicate to their congregations the “biblical mandate for involvement in local and national elections.”
Seems to us at Religion News Blog that some other, more important Biblical mandates are being skipped in the process.
In the US the wall between church and state came a-tumbling down on Sunday, as elected leaders from the five states on the Gulf of Mexico issued proclamations declaring it to be a day of prayer. Although days of prayer are not uncommon here these proclamations conveyed the sense that at this late date, salvation from the oil spill all but requires divine intervention.
Evangelical pastor H. Wayne Williams endorses gubernatorial candidate, insists it’s his way of walking with the Lord.