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July 31 (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on Monday on behalf of Oklahoma residents asking a state judge to block the creation of the nation's first religious public charter school. Oklahoma's Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, one of the defendants in the suit, in June approved the Catholic Church's application to create the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would use millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to operate. Rebecca Wilkinson, the executive director of the statewide virtual charter school board, said in an email that the agency would not comment on pending litigation. Charter schools are publicly funded and independently run under the terms of a charter with a local or national authority. Listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging St. Isidore are nine Oklahoma residents and the Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee.

Persons: Isidore of, Isidore, Brett Farley, Farley, Ryan Walters, Walters, St, Rebecca Wilkinson, Gentner Drummond, Brad Brooks, Donna Bryson, Bill Berkrot, Deepa Babington Organizations: American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, Charter School Board, Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, U.S, Supreme, Republican, Oklahoma, Catholic, Catholic Archdiocese of, Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, University of Notre Dame, The ACLU, Americans United, and State, Education Law Center, Religion Foundation, Thomson Locations: Isidore of Seville, Oklahoma, U.S ., Maine and Montana, St, Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma, Indiana, Lubbock , Texas

☆ A Centuries-Long Manhunt Stretches Across Mexico and Beyond
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Randy Boyagoda | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

NOT EVEN THE DEAD, by Juan Gómez Bárcena. Translated by Katie Whittemore. His latest book, splendidly translated by Katie Whittemore, only adds to his standing, thanks to its successful blend of ambitious literary dynamism with contemporary social and political commentary. And so, like an anti-Quixote, he sets off on his quest without fanfare, heading north, expecting to be home in a few weeks. Never mind that no one can tell Juan what his quarry really looks like.

Persons: Juan Gómez Bárcena, Katie Whittemore, We’ll, Cormac McCarthy, Juan Gómez Bárcena’s, Roberto Bolaño, Joseph Conrad, —, “, Juan, Juan de Toñanes, Juan the, Quixote Organizations: Spanish Locations: Lima, Spain, Puebla, United States, Spanish, Mexico

☆ LGBT rights yield to religious interests at US Supreme Court
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-01 | by ( John Kruzel | Industry Insight | Corporate Attorneys Don T Want To Pay Law Firms For Chatgpt When They Could Use It Themselves | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

"We've seen a dramatic expansion of rights for conservative religious communities that has had a detrimental impact on equality rights, certainly for LGBTQ people," said Elizabeth Platt, director of the Law, Rights and Religion Project at Columbia Law School. Smith, who said she opposes gay marriage based on her Christian beliefs, was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative religious rights group. Still, the ruling illustrated a disparity in how the court views protections for LGBT people in contrast to the competing conservative Christian interests, Platt said. He stood out among conservatives in his espousal of sympathy both for conservative Christian causes and for what is sometimes called the "dignity interests" of marginalized groups including LGBT people. Barrett's addition gave it a 6-3 conservative margin and recalibrated how it weighed conservative Christian causes against the dignity interests of people protected by civil rights laws.

Persons: Read, Lorie Smith, Smith, Elizabeth Platt, Kristen Waggoner, Waggoner, Jack Phillips, Phillips, Platt, Anthony Kennedy, Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's, Neil Gorsuch, Friday's, Amy Coney Barrett, Kennedy, Kennedy's, Hodges, Obergefell, Barrett, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Barrett's, Rachel Laser, John Kruzel, Will Dunham Organizations: U.S, Supreme, Law, Columbia Law School . Colorado, Alliance Defending, Defending, Colorado Civil Rights Commission, FOSTER CARE, Catholic Church, Philadelphia, Republican, Trump, Americans United, and State, Thomson Locations: WASHINGTON, Denver, Colorado, U.S, Fulton, City of Philadelphia, Obergefell

☆ How Pat Robertson Created the Religious Right’s Model for Political Power
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Elizabeth Dias | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Pat Robertson imagined a nation where conservative Christian values reigned in the halls of power. Conservative Christian believers would no longer be ignored, as he felt they were. Mr. Robertson ran for president in 1988, hoping to channel evangelistic popularity from his growing television empire, the Christian Broadcasting Network, into Republican political might. And yet, by the time of his death on Thursday, the vision he championed had gained more power than he could have ever thought possible. The polarizing rhetoric of his often inflammatory views has become a defining feature of American politics.

Persons: Pat Robertson, Robertson, —, Roe, Wade, Donald J, Trump Organizations: Conservative, Christian Broadcasting Network, Republican, United States Embassy Locations: America, Israel, Jerusalem

☆ Pat Robertson, Who Gave Christian Conservatives Clout, Dies at 93
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Douglas Martin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Pat Robertson, a Baptist minister with a passion for politics who marshaled Christian conservatives into a powerful constituency that helped Republicans capture both houses of Congress in 1994, died on Thursday at his home in Virginia Beach, Va. His death was announced by the Christian Broadcasting Network, which Mr. Robertson founded in 1960. Mr. Robertson built an entrepreneurial empire based on his Christian faith, encompassing a university, a law school, a cable channel with broad reach, and more. The loss did not dampen his political fervor; he went on to found the Christian Coalition, which stoked the conservative faith-based political resurgence of the 1990s and beyond. But he was also given to statements that his detractors saw as outlandishly wrongheaded and dangerously incendiary.

Persons: Pat Robertson, marshaled, Robertson, chuckling Organizations: Republicans, Christian Broadcasting Network, Mr, Republican, Christian Coalition Locations: Virginia Beach, Va

☆ Opinion | Oklahoma Breaches the Wall Between Church and State
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( David French | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

If I had to sum up the current debate within the American right, I’d describe it as a contest between liberty and authority. The dispute between liberty and authority has become a subtext of the Republican presidential primary. It also respects the free speech rights of students and the academic freedom of professors, so that the state doesn’t become the final arbiter of truth. The authority side, by contrast, believes that someone’s worldview will control our schools, so it should be theirs. laws and other educational gag orders, which attempt to tightly regulate instruction about race, gender, and sexual orientation in public schools.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, DeSantis, Disney, Asa Hutchinson, “ it’s, ” Tim Scott Organizations: Republican Locations: Florida

☆ Oklahoma approves first publicly funded Catholic school in US
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Brad Brooks | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

June 5 (Reuters) - An Oklahoma school board on Monday approved the Catholic Church's application to create the first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in the U.S. Oklahoma's Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved the plan to create the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in a 3-2 vote. Charter schools are publicly funded, independently run schools established under the terms of a charter with a local or national authority. The school would cost Oklahoma taxpayers up to $25.7 million over its first five years of operation, its organizers said. The law school at the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic institution in Indiana, helped with the application.

Persons: Isidore of, Isidore, Brad Brooks, David Gregorio Our Organizations: U.S, Charter School Board, Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, Roman, Supreme, Catholic Archdiocese of, Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, University of Notre Dame, Thomson Locations: An Oklahoma, Isidore of Seville, Maine and Montana, Oklahoma, Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma, Indiana, Lubbock , Texas

☆ The U.S. isn't the only country with a debt ceiling. Here's how Denmark avoids the drama
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-24 | by ( Elliot Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

U.S. President Joe Biden hosts debt limit talks with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 22, 2023. Yet in Denmark — the only other democracy with a similar type of nominal debt ceiling — barely anybody knows it exists. Separation of church and state While the U.S. debt ceiling restricts government borrowing to a particular figure, most other economies set debt limits as a percentage of GDP. The Danish debt ceiling, or "gældsloft," was implemented as a constitutional requirement in 1993 after a restructure of the country's government, and set at 950 billion Danish kroner ($137.5 billion). Denmark is the only other country in the world with a debt ceiling comparable to that of the U.S., but it never causes the same political crises that Washington frequently faces.

☆ The mourning dress codes of ‘Succession’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Jacquelyn Palumbo | Jacqui Palumbo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

“Succession” has treated us to both a wedding and a funeral as fate of the Roy siblings spin out towards its finale (which is produced by Warner Bros. Discovery, parent company of CNN), and its penultimate episode gave us mourning dress codes in a grand Catholic setting. “I can do anything — my dad just died,” Shiv responds when asked for a favor at the mass. By episode nine, with the company in a shaky post-Logan transition, the optics of how the Roy siblings perform at the funeral hold a lot of weight. Emotions must be stamped down, they maintain a fragile façade, and getting too close to the truth of Logan Roy is met with a wall of cognitive dissonance.

☆ Opinion | Whose Version of Christian Nationalism Will Win in 2024?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Michelle Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Last week the ReAwaken America Tour, a Christian nationalist roadshow co-founded by the former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, rolled up to the Trump National Doral Miami resort. (“Hitler was actually fighting the same people that we’re trying to take down today,” said McKay, not inaccurately.) But as of this writing, the tour’s website still includes McKay and Ward, along with Eric Trump, as featured speakers at an upcoming extravaganza in Las Vegas. ReAwaken America’s association with anti-Semites did not stop Donald Trump from calling into the rally to offer his support. Now he’s become, in addition to an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and QAnon adherent, one of the country’s most prominent Christian nationalists.

☆ Photos: The coronation of King Charles III
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

Britain's King Charles III places his hands on the Coronation Bible as he takes the Coronation Oath at Westminster Abbey on Saturday, May 6. Britain's King Charles III will be officially crowned Saturday in a magnificent and deeply religious ceremony at Westminster Abbey. After the two-hour ceremony, Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla — who will also be crowned — will travel back to Buckingham Palace in the Gold State Coach, which has been used in every coronation since 1831. They will then make an appearance on the palace balcony alongside other members of the royal family and watch a flypast of 60 aircraft. Charles instantly became King in September when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died at the age of 96.

☆ Opinion: Why Britain is so weirded out by pledging allegiance to Charles
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Opinion Laura Beers | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

In a break with tradition, the public will be invited to pledge allegiance to King Charles III during the coronation ceremony on Saturday May 6. While many Brits I’ve spoken to are simply indifferent to the proposed pledge, there has also been an unprecedent degree of public vitriol over the scheme. Yet, objections to the proposed pledge are as much about its content as its form. The proposed coronation pledge, in contrast, invites Britons to pledge their loyalty to the King, and to his “heirs and successors” – a positively undemocratic pronouncement. That complexity cannot simply be smoothed away by inviting people to pledge allegiance to the crown.

☆ Mayor Adams Says He Was Given a Divine Message: ‘Talk About God’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Dana Rubinstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Mayor Eric Adams began to talk frequently about God a few months back — how God elevated him to lead New York City, how Mr. Adams implemented policy with a “godlike” approach, how the separation of church and state was misguided — his timing was no accident. He was, he says, responding to the same divine voice he heard decades ago, the one that he says prophesied that he would become mayor on Jan. 1, 2022. “The same voice I heard 32 years ago spoke to me a few months ago and said, ‘Talk about God, Eric,’” Mr. Adams said on Thursday at the Christian Cultural Center, a Brooklyn megachurch that has become a favored political pulpit for many. “‘Talk about God.’”Mr. Adams made his comments on the National Day of Prayer, a day of observance created by President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, in 1952. But few New York City mayors have chosen to formally commemorate the day or to speak so fervently about religion — especially not in the way Mr. Adams has.

Charles’ coronation is expected to be shorter than his mother’s seven decades ago. The spot where King Charles will be crowned inside Westminster Abbey Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesWhat happens during the coronation service? Which crown will King Charles use? How is King Charles making the ceremony more inclusive? Don’t missThe coronation of King Charles III brings pageantry, revelry, and new questions – is the monarchy relevant in the modern world?

☆ How Anthropic cofounder and former journalist Jack Clark turned a chance meeting into an AI newsletter with over 34,000 subscribers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Jack Clark was a Bloomberg tech journalist in 2015 when he came across OpenAI for the first time. He was so inspired that he quit his job and dove into the world of AI, later cofounding Anthropic. Now, he writes Import AI, a weekly AI-focused newsletter that reaches over 34,000 subscribers. A "weird" newsletterA weekly newsletter, Import AI features detailed analyses on AI research papers, Clark's thoughts on current events, and AI-focused short fiction stories. He estimates that he's read around 4,000 research papers while writing Import AI — and more importantly, he jokes, spent over $6,000 in lattes due to his persistent habit of drinking multiple caffeinated beverages while writing each week.

☆ Oklahoma to vote on first religious charter school in US
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Brad Brooks | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

April 11 (Reuters) - An Oklahoma school board is set to vote on Tuesday on whether the state will allow the first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in the U.S. - a decision that promises to ignite a legal battle testing the concept of separation of church and state. The Statewide Virtual Charter School Board will vote on an application backed by the Catholic church for the creation of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, planned by its organizers to offer an online education for kindergarten through high school initially for 500 students and eventually 1,500. The board is a state entity that considers applications for charter schools - publicly funded but independently run - that operate virtually in Oklahoma. Laser disagreed and said her organization would fight the Catholic church in any court over St. Isidore and any other publicly funded religious school. "There is an attack being waged on public schools in Oklahoma, and that attack is to convert public schools into religious schools," Laser said.

☆ Oklahoma eyes first US religious charter school after Supreme Court rulings
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( John Kruzel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstApril 6 (Reuters) - An Oklahoma school board is set to consider next week whether to approve the first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in the United States in a move that follows recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings expanding religious rights. The board is a state entity that considers applications for charter schools - publicly funded but independently run - that operate virtually in Oklahoma. They estimated that it would cost Oklahoma taxpayers up to $25.7 million over its first five years in operation as a charter school. In 2020, the Supreme Court endorsed Montana tax credits that helped pay for students to attend religious schools. Secular opponents have said religious charter schools would violate legal limits on government involvement in religion.

☆ Lauren Boebert, whose teen son got his girlfriend pregnant, says she doesn't want to 'nitpick what the Bible says is right and wrong'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Aditi Bharade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Lauren Boebert's 17-year-old son got his girlfriend pregnant, and she's thrilled to be a grandmother. She now says she won't "nitpick" what the Bible says is right or wrong. In a Thursday interview on "The Rubin Report," a conservative politics podcast, host Dave Rubin asked Boebert if her son getting his girlfriend pregnant "challenged" any of her beliefs. "We can nitpick what the Bible says is right and wrong, but I think just having that heart posture of wanting to serve God, it's so important." Boebert added that she now plans to teach her son "about redemption and how to move forward."

The plaintiffs accused Ocala of violating the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment "establishment clause," which restricts governmental involvement in religion. Ocala city officials helped organize and conduct the one-hour prayer vigil held in response to a series of shootings in which three children were struck by stray bullets. The city then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A federal district court will now weigh the plaintiffs' establishment clause claims in light of the football coach ruling. The conservative-majority Supreme Court in recent years has chipped away at the wall separating church and state, eroding American legal traditions aimed at barring government officials from promoting any particular faith.

☆ Rep. Lauren Boebert suggested God used her to stand up to to 'demons' including 'a speaker of the House'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Rep. Lauren Boebert told a crowd God may use them to stand in front of "demons," or a "speaker of the House." Boebert, though she was coy about what House speaker she referred to, tried to block McCarthy's bid. Boebert has previously invoked religion and politics, saying "the church is supposed to control the government." After negotiations within the party and 15 rounds of voting, McCarthy was finally elected speaker last month, kicking off the new Congress. Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at IUPUI and co-author of "Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States," told Insider at the time her comments touched on Christian nationalist imagery that's linked to violence.

☆ She Became a Broker to Buy Her Own House Near Washington, D.C. Which Did She Choose?
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Michele Lerner | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

When Ms. Latney was growing up in Washington, D.C., her grandmother owned four apartment houses and a single-family home in the area, all of which she passed down to her six children. Ms. Latney was raised in one of those houses. “Everyone in my family bought a house because of the legacy of my grandmother,” she said. For three years, she rented a two-bedroom apartment in Northeast Washington, for about $1,000 a month, before briefly moving in with her mother. “I wanted to get the commission and not put my hard-earned money in someone else’s hands,” said Ms. Latney, who is now a sales associate with Coldwell Banker.

☆ Missouri's abortion ban declares 'Almighty God is the author of life.' Faith leaders beg to differ in new suit.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Stephanie Russell-Kraft | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Missouri's abortion ban completely outlaws abortion with limited exceptions. The clergy, who come from denominations of Christianity, Unitarian Universalism, and Judaism, said the abortion ban violates their religious freedom and subjects them to "the religious dictates of others." "It came from religious leaders and communities, who have been explaining for decades that they see reproductive freedom as essential to religious freedom." But Missouri lawmakers openly discussed their religious beliefs on abortion while writing the abortion ban in 2019 according to the lawsuit, saying things like "Life begins at conception. There have also been more than a dozen cases challenging abortion restrictions on religious freedom grounds since the Supreme Court's decision, according to Platt.

☆ How Anti-Abortion Activists Bought Access to the Supreme Court
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( Katherine Long | Jack Newsham | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +29 min

In exchange for as little as a few thousand dollars in contributions to the nonprofit, these people received easy access to events where Supreme Court justices would be. Supreme Court Historical society trustee Jay Sekulow, center, represented President Trump during the latter's impeachment trial in 2020. Anti-abortion advocates cheer in front of the Supreme Court after the decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores was announced in 2014. Alito did not respond to a request for comment on his involvement in the Supreme Court Historical Society. Supreme Court justices, though, aren't even required to stay within those weak guardrails because no code of ethics governs justices' behavior.

☆ When Does Life Begin?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-31 | by ( Elizabeth Dias | Bethany Mollenkof | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +19 min

“It is not black and white.”America’s fight over abortion has long circled a question, one that is broad and without consensus:When does life begin? The question of when life begins has been so politicized it can be hard to thoughtfully engage. Ancient Egypt gave the power to create new human life almost entirely to men. The scientific revolution, from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to reproductive science, disrupted centuries of thought on human life. “When does the responsibility for a life begin and end?”

Both would be setbacks for the Biden administration. In another immigration-related case, the court has yet to rule on the Biden administration’s attempt to implement its immigration enforcement priorities. For Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration’s top advocate at the court, arguing before such a conservative court is a constant uphill battle. The government similarly failed to convince the conservative majority not to expand gun rights in another major ruling issued that month. The Biden administration can point to some hard-fought victories.

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