first amendment

Christian Legal Society loses its challenge to Hastings College of Law.

The notorious Alliance Defense Fund, which seeks to abrogate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, has recruited an evangelical minister to endorse a candidate for governor from the pulpit in hopes of taking his case all the way to the Supreme Court. Such advocacy, of course, violates the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits any 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization from making political endorsements.

Teachers and administrators free to proselytize… unless they agree not to.

The Christian Legal Society has sued Hastings College of Law for its refusal to recognize their group as an official campus club, claiming their freedom to practice their faith is being challenged. An expert on church-state separation law says the case is more about the religious right’s “political moxie” to claim religious persecution than about religious liberty.

The judge issues a mixed bag of early rulings leaving most of the larger issues to a jury.

Why was a Utah city allowed to prevent a minority religion from erecting a monument next to a monument of the Ten Commandments? The Supreme Court’s Summum decision, litigated in the shadow of the Establishment Clause, raises more questions than answers.

Obama’s Bush-era strategy of using taxpayer money for faith-based social services not only risks infusing politics into religion, but also denies religious groups their traditional responsibility for caring for those in need—with their own funds.