Recent News & Columns
Here are recent columns and news items from the Baptist Joint Committee. Visit our blog and read our monthly magazine, Report from the Capital, to stay current on all religious liberty news. You can also read our press releases online.
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BJC urges Supreme Court to affirm that RFRA permits monetary damage awards
Tanzin v. Tanvir invites the Supreme Court to determine whether or not “appropriate relief” under a RFRA lawsuit can include monetary damages, and BJC joined a brief arguing that it does.
BJC files comments on proposed regulations eliminating beneficiary protections
BJC filed comments opposing the proposals that would remove existing regulations that protect the rights of people who receive government-funded services from a faith-based provider.
U.S. Supreme Court to hear dispute over child placement service refusal on religious grounds, may reconsider pivotal decision
The roiling controversy over religious child placement agencies that are funded by taxpayers but object to providing certain services because of their religious beliefs will get a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, which announced it would hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia.
11th Circuit returns to Pensacola cross case: After Supreme Court ruling, monument can stay
Following the Bladensburg cross case decision, the justices sent the Pensacola case back to the 11th Circuit for reconsideration. There can be no doubt that the Bladensburg cross decision – as narrow as it may have been written – redrew constitutional boundaries when it comes to government-owned religious displays.
Air Force revises grooming rules to accommodate religious beards, head coverings
Updated Air Force regulations make clearer and smoother the path for personnel to request and obtain a religious waiver by those who wish to wear religious apparel or are requesting exemptions from rules prohibiting beards and long hair.
Texas files suit against California in U.S. Supreme Court as dispute over religious right of refusal intensifies
Texas is challenging a California law, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt one of the latest developments in the escalating tension between states over the rights of organizations and businesses to refuse to provide services that would conflict with their religious beliefs.
Federal court: Religious freedom law protects group providing aid to migrants from criminal convictions
Because of RFRA, a federal judge ruled that the criminal convictions of volunteers with the group No More Deaths must be overturned because they were acting in accordance with their sincere religious beliefs when they entered a wildlife refuge near the southern border in Arizona to leave water and food for those crossing into the United States.
![In State of the Union, President Trump pushes bill that would fund religious schools with taxpayer money [UPDATED]](https://bjconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/SOTU-seal-thumbnail-266x250.jpg)
In State of the Union, President Trump pushes bill that would fund religious schools with taxpayer money [UPDATED]
Opportunity scholarships present all of the same religious liberty problems that school vouchers do. Using taxpayer funds for religious education is a bad idea for both the church and the state.
BJC’s Tyler: Expanded travel ban still ‘rooted in anti-Muslim bias’
President Trump has announced an expansion of his administration’s “travel ban.” As BJC Executive Director Amanda Tyler explains in response to this latest announcement, the policy is ultimately rooted in anti-Muslim bias.
As Trump expands the travel ban, remember this policy’s roots: Unconstitutional anti-Muslim bias
The specifics of the travel ban have changed over the past three years, but this fact remains: this policy, no matter how much it undergoes chameleon-like aesthetic adjustments, is ultimately rooted in anti-Muslim bias.
