Free Republic

A Catholic hospital in California has agreed to permit a doctor to sterilize a woman after the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to file a lawsuit, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. "Rachel Miller, due to have her second child in late September, agreed with her husband that this would be her last pregnancy and decided she would be sterilized by tubal ligation after giving birth," the newspaper reported. Miller says that her insurance will not cover both childbirth and sterilization at any other hospital in a 150-mile radius. Citing the US bishops’ healthcare directives, Mercy Medical Center in Redding initially...

The ACLU is getting involved after a sheriff's deputy in Kentucky was caught on camera handcuffing a child. Deputy: "You can do what we've asked you to, or you can suffer the consequences." Child: "Ow, that hurts." Deputy: "Now sit down in the chair like I've asked you to." The adult is School Resource Officer Kevin Sumner. You can see him placing handcuffs on the biceps of an eight-year-old boy.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana is concerned Gov. Bobby Jindal may disregard the constitutional rights of the Westboro Baptist Church with his latest executive order. "Governor Jindal's Executive Order ... is misguided and has the potential to be used to infringe on protestors' First Amendment rights," said the ACLU in a statement Sunday morning. Jindal issued an order Saturday mostly aimed at keeping the Westboro Baptist Church -- and presumably the vulgar "God Hates Fags" signs they usually carry -- away from the funerals of two Lafayette movie theater shootings victims. "They come here to Louisiana. They try...

The federal government today released a new rule to ensure that women will have birth control coverage in their health insurance, even if they work for closely held for-profit companies that have a religious objection to contraception. The rule follows the Supreme Court’s decision last year that Hobby Lobby and other closely held corporations could not be required to provide contraceptive coverage to their female employees, even though that coverage is guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act. “Today’s guidance is a positive development for women denied access to important healthcare in the troubling aftermath of the Hobby Lobby ruling,” said...

On Saturday’s “Melissa Harris-Perry” on MSNBC, director of American Civil Liberties Union Cecillia Wang reacted to the media’s treatment of San Francisco, as well as other cities, for being a sanctuary city.Sanctuary cities are now under fire after Kate Steinle was shot dead on July 1, allegedly by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a Mexican felon who was in the United States illegally.

New York: A Sikh-American employee at the Walt Disney World in Florida, who was barred from working in view of the guests due his religious appearance, for seven years, has achieved a significant victory, with the company agreeing to end the segregation and accommodate his religious beliefs. Gurdit Singh had been employed as a mail carrier at the popular amusement park in 2008 but was told by his Disney bosses that he would not be permitted to run mail routes visible to park guests because his religious appearance "violated" the company's 'Look Policy,' according to the rights group Sikh Coalition. In a letter...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is certainly no stranger to clashing with the Catholic Church over its pro-life position. This is especially the case when it comes to Catholic hospitals refusing to perform abortions. A lawsuit from 2013 over such an incident has now been thrown out by a federal judge in Michigan. A piece from mlive.com reports that Tamesha Means, who miscarried in 2010, was represented by the ACLU and ACLU Michigan with her lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop and three chairs of Catholic Health Ministries. She did not, however, sue the hospital Mercy Health,...

Even before the U.S. Supreme Court announced the previously unknown constitutional “right” to impose same-sex “marriage” on all 50 states, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was readying its next volley. For two decades, the ACLU has cited the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) as a defense of religious liberty in various worthy and some not-so-worthy cases. No more. The ACLU has decided that the unalienable right to religious freedom embodied in the First Amendment must give way to newly coined claims by newly empowered groups. In a Washington Post column, ACLU Deputy Director Louise Melling called on Congress...

Larry Klayman, former federal prosecutor for the Justice Department and the founder of Judicial Watch and now Freedom Watch, announced the filing of a lawsuit against the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”), and certain of its attorneys for violating their fiduciary duty and attorney client relationship, as well as defaming NSA/CIA whistleblower Dennis Montgomery. The complaint was filed in federal court in Miami, Florida (Case No. 15-cv-22452). Montgomery sought legal assistance from the ACLU with regard to his whistleblowing of the unconstitutional and illegal acts by the NSA and CIA, much like the disclosures of Edward Snowden. Montgomery possesses information...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, tells Breitbart News exclusively that he’s appalled by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) decision to turn against defending civil liberties. “Their hypocrisy is absolutely stunning,” Jindal said when asked about how the ACLU’s website, and their legal argument history, is filled with defenses of religious liberty. ... Jindal’s interview with Breitbart News came just hours after the ACLU announced it would be suing Jindal over an executive order he issued in the state of Louisiana aimed at protecting religious freedom. The executive order, as Breitbart News reported, tried to protect...

The American Civil Liberties Union is withdrawing its support of a 1993 federal law designed to protect persons acting on their religious beliefs. In an op-ed in the Washington Post June 25, Louise Melling, the ACLU's deputy legal director, wrote that while the organization once supported the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, it is concerned now that the law can be used to trample the rights of others, particularly homosexuals:   For more than 15 years, we have been concerned about how the RFRA could be used to discriminate against others. As the events of the past couple of years amply illustrate,...

For years conservatives and proponents of religious liberty in America have warned that if same-sex marriage became legal, the left would then pursue revoking the tax exempt status for religious institutions, particularly Christian churches, around the country. Just days after the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that gay marriage is a constitutional right, progressive activists like Mark Oppenheimer of the New York Times are calling for tax exempt statutes to be stripped. The Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage makes it clearer than ever that the government shouldn't be subsidizing religion and non-profits. Rather than try to rescue...

Come on. How many will truly be surprised to see the American Civil Liberties Union backpedal away from an enumerated civil right in the Constitution, now that the cognoscenti considers it a form of bigotry? I feel so old. I remember when the ACLU was a civil liberties organization. http://t.co/oe1EiYAXja— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) June 27, 2015 @Popehat @Lorienen @ACLU well now that Christians use it the ACLU can't support it— Clarence Whorley (@ClarenceWhorley) June 27, 2015 The organization that once went to court to ensure that the American Nazi Party could parade through Skokie, Illinois in an exercise of free...

Iknoor Singh, a student at Hofstra University, thought he had found his calling when he attended a campus meeting of the U.S. Army’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. But when he tried to sign up, he was told that he would have to shave his beard, cut his hair and remove his turban. When he asked for a religious accommodation as a Sikh, the Army refused, saying that these articles of faith would undermine unit cohesion and morale, readiness, health and safety, and discipline. ..................................................... Yes, religious freedom needs protection. But religious liberty doesn’t mean the right to discriminate or to...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Anna Núñez, ACLU of Texas, 713-942-8146, Ext. 110, media@aclutx.org [1] HOUSTON – In separate written requests submitted today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas demanded two Texas police departments provide a full accounting of recent incidents involving excessive use of force in the City of McKinney and mass arrests in the City of Waco. Though unrelated, the events share a common problem: police abuse and lack of transparency and accountability. “In order to maintain the trust of the communities they serve, law enforcement agencies must embrace transparency in their operations, especially when questionable incidents...

Four weeks after the deadly Twin Peaks shooting melee that left nine bikers dead, 177 others in jail with million-dollar bonds and way more questions than answers about biker subculture, due process in Waco and conflicting crime narratives, the two sides in all this are only hardening in their positions. In short, a microcosm of the American way. Some vigorously support local law enforcement. They say the facts that bikers came to Waco’s Twin Peaks restaurant well-armed and that search warrants reveal many wore colors of motorcycle gangs associated by the FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety with criminal...

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal sex discrimination lawsuit on behalf of a Virginia high school student who has been prohibited from using the boys bathrooms and locker rooms on school premises. The student plaintiff, 16-year-old Gavin Grimm, attends Gloucester High School in quiet, coastal Virginia, reports the Daily Press of Newport News. The reason school officials have prevented Grimm from using facilities reserved for boys on campus is because Grimm was born a girl and by all accounts remains a girl. Nevertheless, Grimm, her family and the ACLU want a court order forcing the local school...

Moldy showers and cells are infested with mice and cockroaches, toilets are broken for days and medical care is poor or nonexistent at a notoriously troubled Baltimore city jail, the ACLU and Public Justice Center said in court documents filed Tuesday. The groups want a federal judge to reopen a lawsuit against the state of Maryland over what they say are conditions so substandard it brings "shame to this city." Inmates suffering from serious illnesses such as HIV and diabetes are being denied life-sustaining prescription medication and the state has failed to cure well-documented systemic problems within the jail after...

The U.S. Supreme Court landed the final blow against an Arizona law that denied bail to immigrants who are in the country illegally and are charged with certain felonies, marking the latest in a series of state immigration policies that have since been thrown out by the courts. The nation’s highest court on Monday rejected a bid from metro Phoenix’s top prosecutor and sheriff to reinstate the 2006 law after a lower appeals court concluded late last year that it violated civil rights by imposing punishment before trial. While a small number of Arizona’s immigration laws have been upheld, the...

DETROIT — The state of Michigan is being sued over its refusal to change gender identities on driver’s licenses without a new birth certificate. The ACLU says an amended birth certificate in Michigan requires proof of transgender surgery, although most transgender people don’t want surgery. Secretary of State spokeswoman Gisgie Gendreau says the agency is following state law.