By Daniel Bullard-Bates, ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief at 1:04pm
For several years, the public high schools of Enfield, Connecticut held their graduation ceremony in the First Cathedral Church in nearby Bloomfield. Students, friends, and family entered the building under a large cross, passed through a lobby decorated with religious banners, and entered into the main sanctuary, where the graduation ceremony took place below a stained glass cross and two banners that read “Jesus Christ is Lord” and “I am God.” Attending graduation meant going to church.
Tuesday, a Nebraska federal court rejected a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s rule requiring insurance plans to cover contraception. This was the first of two dozen challenges to be decided. We applaud the court’s decision and hope that the judges in the other cases follow the Nebraska federal judge’s lead.
By Heather L. Weaver, ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief at 5:36pm
Today, we were pleased to learn that the Supreme Court declined to review our challenge to the federal government’s display of a 43-foot-tall Latin cross atop Mt. Soledad in San Diego, California. The ACLU and the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties brought the case on behalf of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America—the oldest veterans’ organization in the country – and several local residents.
By Hina Shamsi, Director, ACLU National Security Project & Patrick C. Toomey, Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 10:14am
The ACLU, together with the NYCLU and CUNY's CLEAR Project, filed a lawsuit today challenging the New York Police Department's unconstitutional policy and practice of targeting entire Muslim communities for discriminatory and suspicionless surveillance. The NYPD's vast religious profiling program has cast an unjustified badge of suspicion and stigma on hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers, based on nothing more than their religious faith and practice. We represent civic and religious leaders, two mosques, and a charitable organization, all of whom were swept up in the police department's dragnet surveillance because they are Muslim.
By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:08am
On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times published a powerful editorial arguing that a blank check for religiously affiliated organizations – far beyond houses of worship – to discriminate in employment against LGBT people should not be the price paid to enact the long-sought and critically important Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).
