A new Congress could mean renewed threats to religious liberty. The leaders of the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives have promised to prioritize legislation granting protected class status to LGBT Americans while also undermining the protections codified in the 1993 Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA).

Tired of bad news out of America’s courthouses? Worried that so many judges in those courthouses seem to have lost their way? Concerned that the religious liberty clause in our Bill of Rights means less and less in this terribly secular age?

Well, here’s a cheery note as the new year gets under way. A judge in Green Bay, Wis., ruled in December that churches—and other religious organizations as well—are free to preach and teach distinctives of their particular beliefs even if those beliefs might at first appear to be in conflict with local civic ordinances.

Recent accusations of online bias, especially against conservative viewpoints, have triggered calls for U.S. government regulation of major tech companies. But while imposing such controls on Big Tech may appeal to the blocked and banished, critics argue that making the federal government the moderator of online discourse will likely do more to silence, not stimulate, conversations.

Lawsuits on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court tested the First Amendment’s application of free speech and religious liberty in 2018, and the cases arrived at a court whose ideological bent has shifted since they were filed. The court agreed to hear one case, but the year closes leaving Christian plaintiffs where they began—looking to the New Year for relief.

State officials in Albany, N.Y., delivered an ultimatum to a private, Christian nonprofit adoption agency this fall: Stop placing children according to your religious beliefs or stop placing children at all.

Two major evangelical organizations have formally endorsed principles that would add sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) to federal nondiscrimination law. 

The boards of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) quietly passed similar motions in recent months, advancing a multiyear effort they say is necessary to preserve religious freedom. 

A Virginia teacher was fired Thursday after he refused to use male pronouns for a female student who identifies as a boy.

The West Point School Board in West Point, Va., voted unanimously to dismiss French teacher Peter Vlaming, 47, after a four-hour hearing. The school said in a statement that Vlaming’s refusal constituted “a willful violation of school board policy.”