First Amendment

In the space below, we offer some unconventional thoughts about the highly-anticipated Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. cases that will be argued in the Supreme Court next month, and that involve challenges under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to the Affordable Care Act's requirement that employers must provide contraceptive services in their healthcare policies offered to employees. In particular, we try to lay the Hobby Lobby disputes alongside the other big case this Term that raises religious liberty issues, Town of Greece v.

Today we analyze a very intriguing issue raised by a case that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court next month, McCullen v.

In the space below, we offer our analysis of the oral argument that was held two days ago at the U.S. Supreme Court in this Term's most important case addressing the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, Town of Greece v. Galloway. The litigation involves a decade-plus-long practice in the upstate New York Town of Greece of starting Town Board meetings with a short prayer. Before 1999, the Town (which has slightly fewer than 100,000 residents) began Board meetings with a moment of silence.

In the space below, we analyze an important and interesting decision, Demers v.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court granted review in an important case involving the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, Galloway v. Town of Greece.  Galloway involves a decade-plus- long practice in the upstate New York Town of Greece of starting Town Board meetings with a short prayer.  Before 1999, the Town (which has slightly fewer than 100,000 residents) began Board meetings with a moment of silence.  But since then, it has been inviting local clergy to offer an opening prayer after the Pledge of Allegiance has been recited.

In my column today, I analyze an interesting case that a state Supreme Court will soon decide that illustrates, and has implications for, important national questions concerning the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment.  In particular, the Kentucky case, Kant v. Lexington Theological Seminary, demonstrates the need for the U.S.

In my column this week, I explore an important First Amendment free speech ruling handed down at the end of December by the California Supreme Court.  The case, Ralphs Grocery Company v.

In the space below, we explore some very interesting and complex First Amendment issues that are implicated in a recent lawsuit in Texas.

California Governor Jerry Brown last week signed into law a measure that regulates demonstrations near funerals in order to protect the peace and privacy of grieving families and other mourners.  In the space below, we analyze this law and seemingly similar measures that have been adopted at the federal level and in other states to determine when protecting mourners is, or is not, compatible with the First Amendment.

Much attention has been directed toward the asserted clashes between the federal government’s recently adopted policies concerning health insurance coverage for contraceptive services, on the one hand, and religious liberties, on the other.  But state laws and policies present just as much, if not more, potential for infringement of religious liberties.  In the present column, we analyze a recent case from the state of Washington that sheds important light on the current state of the constitutional right to the free exercise of religion, and that also illustrates many of the big u