New York told the Syracuse-based adoption agency New Hope Family Services it had to place children with same-sex couples or not place them at all. But a federal court stepped in last week, ruling the agency could continue to operate according to its Biblical beliefs, for now.

While the U.S. Senate considers whether to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the court will go ahead with two religious liberty cases in the next month. With only eight justices, a tied decision would automatically leave the most recent lower court ruling in place.

Two churches, three Christian schools, and a crisis pregnancy center filed a lawsuit in state court on Monday against the Virginia Values Act. The plaintiffs say the law, far from reflecting their values, unconstitutionally imposes an LGBT ideology contrary to their religious beliefs.

Despite the popular stereotype of lawyers as unnecessarily verbose, a rule proposed by the American Bar Association could discourage them from speaking at all.

The defendant in a fraud case said a federal judge in Florida unfairly booted the one juror who thought she was innocent. In April 2017, a jury convicted former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., of federal tax and fraud charges. She received a sentence of five years in prison for allegedly spending money donated to her charity on personal expenses.

Capitol Hill Baptist Church, a historic evangelical congregation in Washington, D.C., has met for services in a field outside another church in Northern Virginia since mid-June. Its leaders are willing to require masks and social distancing, but the District of Columbia’s coronavirus restrictions are too tight for the nearly 1,000 regular attendees to worship together, even outdoors. After D.C.

After holding indoor services since late August, members of North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, Calif., gathered in the parking lot to worship from their cars the past two Sundays. Pastor Jack Trieber told congregants that after prayer, fasting, and counsel, he decided not to resist the county’s lawsuit over the Bay Area church’s violations of COVID-19 restrictions. The church had racked up fines of more than $100,000 by the time it and Santa Clara County agreed to drop their lawsuits late Friday.