Health care workers denied religious exemption to COVID-19 vaccine mandate settle lawsuit for $10.3M

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 21, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he expects to name his nominee for the Supreme Court by the end of the week. The nomination, Trump’s third to the highest court, follows the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose funeral services will be held this week. 

Speaking to the television program “Fox & Friends,” President Trump said that he is “going to make a decision on either Friday or Saturday,” and that he “will announce it either Friday or Saturday, and then the work begins.” The president added that he would not make the announcement earlier “in all due respect” for the late justice’s memorial arrangements. 

Justice Ginsburg died September 18, at the age of 87. She had previously been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Trump said that he was “looking at five, probably four, but I’m looking at five very seriously” options to replace Ginsburg. Previously, Trump had said he would nominate a woman for the position. 

He said two of the people he was considering were “fantastic,” but did not elaborate further. 

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced on Monday that Ginsburg will lie in state at the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol on Friday, following two days of lying in repose at the Supreme Court on Wednesday and Thursday. Ginsburg will lie underneath the Portico, and the public will be permitted to view the casket outdoors. 

As per tradition, Ginsburg’s former law clerks will serve as her honorary pallbearers. 

According to the New York Times, Ginsburg will be buried in a private ceremony alongside her husband at Arlington National Cemetery. 

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a Catholic mother of seven, is widely reported to be the front-runner on the president’s shortlist of prospective nominees.

Barrett, a federal judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, is reported to lead the president’s short list, and was also a contender for Trump’s second Supreme Court nomination in 2018, before the president nominated Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

According to Axios, Trump in 2018 said of Barrett that he was “saving her for Ginsburg” in explanation of his decision not to appoint her to the Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Appointed a federal judge in 2017, Barrett had been a professor at Notre Dame’s law school until her nomination was confirmed. Barrett has twice been honored as “Distinguished Professor of the Year” at Notre Dame, and was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

As a nominee to the federal bench, Barrett was pointedly questioned by Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee in 2017 on how her Catholic faith would influence her decisions as a judge on cases of abortion and same-sex marriage.

During confirmation hearings, Senator Diane Feinstein said of Barrett’s Catholicism “the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern.”

“You’re controversial because many of us that have lived our lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems,” she said. “And Roe entered into that, obviously.”

Barrett repeatedly said that as a judge, she would uphold the law of the land, but many pro-life groups believe she would be open to overturning the precedent of Roe vs. Wade, and uphold state restrictions on abortion.

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Lansing, Mich., Sep 24, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Faith-based adoption agencies won’t be able to adhere to their religious mission in Michigan if a lawsuit challenging state law succeeds, critics say.

“This suit challenging Michigan’s law is mean-spirited, divisive and intolerant,” the Michigan Catholic Conference said Sept. 20.

“It is counter-productive toward efforts to assist vulnerable persons and to promote a variety of opportunities for differing families. It is imperative for the state law to be defended from yet another egregious attack on religious faith in public life.”

The conference defended the law as necessary “to promote diversity in child placement and to maintain a private/public partnership that would stabilize the adoption and foster care space for years to come.”

The federal lawsuit, filed Wednesday, is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union. It charges that the state law allows groups to use a religious test in carrying out public services like foster child or adoption placement. It contends this is unconstitutional and violates both the equal protection and establishment clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

The 2015 law, which was passed with the backing of the Michigan Catholic Conference, prevents state-funded adoption and foster agencies from being forced to place children in violation of their beliefs. The law protects them from civil action and from threats to their public funding. When the law was passed, about 25 percent of Michigan’s adoption and foster agencies were faith-based.

These agencies have worked in the state for decades and have helped place thousands of vulnerable children, the Michigan Catholic Conference said.

David M. Maluchnik, a spokesperson for the Michigan Catholic conference, told the Wall Street Journal that the law aimed to protect “the right of these agencies to operate in accordance with their religious mission.”

“We play a primary role in providing homes for loving families looking to adopt or foster a child,” he said.

The law requires agencies that decline to place children with same-sex couples to refer the couples to other providers.

ACLU attorney Jay Kaplan contended that the law allows agencies to discriminate and puts a child in a situation between “finding a permanent loving home or staying in the system.”

Kristy Dumont, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said she and her civilly recognized spouse Dana Dumont had wanted to adopt in Ingham County but were turned down by Catholic Charities and Bethany Christian Services.

Maluchnik said that there are many Michigan agencies that would place a child with the couple. He questioned why the plaintiffs sued rather than go to another agency.

Before the law was passed, Bethany Christian Services warned that future policies could force faith-based agencies to “choose between their desire to help children and families and their fidelity to their religious principles,” the Michigan-based MLive Media Group reported in 2015.

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Pope Francis meets participants in the plenary session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, Jan. 21, 2022. / Vatican Media.

Vatican City, Jan 21, 2022 / 04:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said Friday tha… […]