Free Republic

The son of a Canadian pastor who faces jail time for preaching to truckers who blocked the US-Canada border last year received a standing ovation in EU Parliament as he slammed PM Justin Trudeau for taking 'freedom and democracy' away from citizens. Nathaniel Pawlowski's father Artur Pawlowski potentially faces 10 years in prison after he delivered a 19-minute speech to truckers who were protesting federal vaccine mandates by blocking the border in early 2022. 'I am here today in desperation, a cry for help,' Pawlowski, 23, told members of the EU Parliament on July 4. 'I would like to stand...

Memphis — An After School Satan Club plans to begin offering activities to children at a Tennessee elementary school following Christmas break, officials said, and the move immediately proved controversial. The Satanic Temple plans to host the club at Chimneyrock Elementary School in Cordova, news outlets reported. It will begin meeting on Jan. 10 in the school's library and run through the spring semester, according to an announcement Tuesday posted on social media.

Abigail Martinez, a mother who lost her daughter to suicide, is seeking justice and protection for families facing similar situations. First Liberty Institute has submitted a brief to the Supreme Court on her behalf, urging the court to uphold parental rights in a case involving the removal of a child from Christian parents due to their religious beliefs about sexuality. Abigail’s daughter, Yaeli, struggled with depression and sexuality, and was ultimately taken from her home and given gender-transition treatments without parental consent. (Trending: Top Democrat Loses In Historic Landslide) “My child was a number in the system. I don’t want...

A new report just released by the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government has offered shocking new insights into the full extent of the FBI’s efforts to use government power and resources to target, intimidate, and harass Catholics, pro-life activists, and other members of the religious community. The December 4 report found, among other disturbing revelations, that the FBI “abused its counterterrorism tools to target Catholic Americans as potential domestic terrorists” when agency operatives in Richmond, Virginia, circulated a memo designating so-called “radical-traditionalist Catholic[s]” as potential “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.” “The Committee and Select Subcommittee...

A North Carolina middle school student was suspended for three days over a conversation he had with classmates about Jesus Christ. The 12-year-old is a seventh grader at Envision Science Academy in Wake Forest. He is also a devout Christian. The young man’s father told me that he received a phone call from the assistant dean saying he needed to attend a meeting about his son’s “continued behavior.” Several of the boy’s classmates had started a conversation during the previous school year about Christianity and his son had explained how they needed a relationship with Jesus Christ to go to...

Santa Clara County (SCC) residents earn the title for longest duration living under the strictest COVID rules in the nation. SCC's public health department (SCC DPH) director, Sara Cody, became the face of lockdown — the spokesperson to declare the nation's first Shelter-in-Place (SIP) order on March 16, 2020. SCC was first in the nation to enter lockdown, lowest for in-person schooling, highest in restrictions, highest in punitive fines, and last to ditch school mask mandates. While frequently lauded by her proponents for touting "safety first," she knew that "the efficacy of face masks and physical distancing hadn't been established...

This case was a challenge to the constitutionality of a Maine program that prohibits tuition for some students to attend private religious schools when their own school district does not operate a public secondary school. The court 6-3, led by Roberts, holds that the Maine program violates the free exercise clause. Because the benefits hinge on whether a school is religious, the Chief writes, the Maine program "effectively penalizes the free exercise" of religion.

Medical conscience concerns are too serious to be allowed to fluctuate according to the whims of the current presidential administration.Thanks to the leaked opinion in the Dobbs case, abortion “rights” have become a hot topic on the left. But what about the rights of health care workers to refuse to abort babies? Or to refuse participation in other referrals or procedures (such as euthanasia or gender reassignment surgeries) to which they object on moral or religious grounds? Under a proposed rule removal by the Biden administration’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS), health care workers will have little recourse if...

Trump White House officials in May 2020 removed public health advice urging churches to consider virtual religious services as the coronavirus spread, delivering a messaging change sought by the president’s supporters, according to emails from former top officials released by a House panel on Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent its planned public health guidance for religious communities to the White House on May 21, 2020, seeking approval to publish it. The agency had days earlier released reports saying that the virus had killed three and infected dozens at church events in Arkansas and infected 87 percent...

So far no arrests have been made and authorities are keeping mum about a raid on a property in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish country around Lancaster, but the local paper has some intriguing suggestions about what’s going on, and it sure looks like the BATFE is getting ready to accuse an Amish farmer of being an unlicensed gun retailer.The raid on the property known as the Cattail Foundry took place two weeks ago, with agents carting off an untold number of guns. This week, LancasterOnline.com spoke with Rueben King, who says the guns were all his private property, though...

emocrat President Joe Biden seems to be “at war with all faith-based agencies” — including foster and adoption agencies that wish to operate according to their religious beliefs, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told Breitbart News. During an exclusive phone interview on Tuesday, the congressman discussed at length an effort he is leading with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and more than 100 other Republican lawmakers to pressure the Biden administration over its November decision to rescind waivers to faith-based adoption and foster agencies in South Carolina, Texas, and Michigan, which let them operate according to their religious beliefs by allowing them...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene today released “Unusually Cruel- An Eyewitness Report From Inside The DC Jail,” her report about what she saw when she was finally allowed to meet the January 6 political prisoners. Reps. Greene, Gohmert, Gaetz, and Gosar tried, unsuccessfully, to visit the January 6 political prisoners twice earlier this year. They were turned back for no stated reasons. They sent a congressional letter and forced a confrontation with the D.C. mayor’s office and the Washington D.C. Department of Corrections (DOC) staff just so they could inspect a jail that “they have the right, prerogative, and duty as...

We have all seen the horrible violence in Seattle in the last year or so. But now there’s a new battle, virtually under the radar. In 1932, the Union Gospel Mission began serving the poor and downtrodden in Seattle. But now this ministry which has been serving millions of meals through the years and providing many other services may have to shut its doors because of a decision by the Washington Supreme Court. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is defending the mission. They write: “A Washington Supreme Court decision forces a religious nonprofit, Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, to hire employees...

Parents of students in the California public school system have filed a lawsuit against the state's Department of Education in an attempt to remove a chant to Aztec gods that's part of a new ethnic studies curriculum. The lawsuit was filed Friday by the conservative legal firm Thomas More Society on behalf of the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, individual taxpayers and parents of current and former students after their Aug. 26 letter to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction demanding withdraw of the Aztec prayer from the curriculum went unanswered. The lawsuit says the “Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum” has...

The settlement with Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, which also includes another $400,000 from the state — avoids further litigation over the matter at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority has signaled that rights to religious practice indoors outweigh the interests of the state to compel places of worship to adhere to public health orders.. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Aug. 31, approved a $400,000 settlement with a San Fernando Valley church that had defied the county’s health order through the thick of the pandemic. The settlement with Grace Community Church in...

What used to be unobjectionable truths could now get you fired from your job or canceled in class. #SAS2021 @TPUSA pic.twitter.com/NKP1sfhWA5— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 19, 2021

This week, a California District Court approved the settlement of Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry's lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom, establishing the first state-wide permanent injunction in the country against COVID restrictions on churches and places of worship. The Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit religious rights law firm, represented Harvest Rock in their legal proceedings against the governor and the state. Under the settlement agreement, discriminatory restrictions on worship and religious gatherings may no longer be applied to churches and places of worship. According to the permanent injunction, churches and places of worship may never again have discriminatory restrictions...

Well, they did it. A "[h]eavily-armed SWAT police" team arrested and dragged off a Christian pastor in the middle of a highway after he had held his church service because he was "inciting" people to go to church. As you can see from video evidence of the arrest, Artur Pawlowski is made to kneel on the road, with his hands behind his head, as he's been handcuffed. It appears to have been raining. I had written just over a week ago how a judge had granted a warrant for police to arrest Pastor Artur Pawlowski using "anything necessary," but still,...

California Governor Gavin Newsom's political future is yet to be decided as the recall effort against him mounts, but he's already a loser when it comes to his COVID restrictions surviving review by the United States Supreme Court. Newsom's disregard for the rights of his fellow citizens amid the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic set up a series of legal showdowns that saw California's governor lose five times in recent months when his restrictive limitations were struck down by SCOTUS. Three of those five losses came at the hands of one group: the Center for American Liberty. "These wins have been in...

Police have placed roadblocks and fencing around GraceLife Church in Edmonton, Alberta in an effort to prevent worshippers from accessing the building. According to The Post Millennial, law enforcement officers descended upon the property early Wednesday morning. The exact reason for the blockade is unknown at this time. GraceLife made headlines earlier this year after the church's pastor, James Coates was jailed for holding in-person worship services amid ongoing pandemic restrictions. As CBN News has reported, after spending a month behind bars for violating the government's capacity mandates, Coates was released from jail on March 29. Pastor Coates's wife, Erin...