The U.S. Supreme Court opted Monday not to weigh in on a case challenging a new Mississippi law that provides a defense against adverse government action and private lawsuits over religious convictions about marriage, sexuality, and gender identity.

From city councils to the U.S. Supreme Court, free speech and religious liberty advocates continue to keep a watchful eye—and a hopeful attitude—on the conflicts spilling over into 2018. As the new year begins, I asked advocates in the areas of law, education, and public policy to forecast the challenges and anticipated triumphs for 2018. The respondents were Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute; Gregory Seltz, executive director of the Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty; Matt Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel; Zach Greenberg, the Justice Robert H.

Legal challenges to Christians’ public expression of faith at work, home, school, and in ministry continued throughout 2017. And as the year drew to a close, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could affect them all.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal last week to hear a case seeking to expand the definition of “sex” in federal employment law to include sexual orientation only delays the inevitable court battle in the war on words. Similar cases are making their way through the lower courts with mixed results, which will force the high court or Congress to step in eventually.

Held captive by a determination to keep religion confined to churches and homes, the Freedom from Religion Foundation is demanding the Wisconsin Department of Corrections sever ties with an educational ministry that offers inmates a degree in Biblical studies.

The headquarters of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) is a mile and a half, or a brisk 20-minute walk, west of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washigton, D.C. Despite its geographic proximity, the release last week of a report calling for a federal LGBT nondiscrimination law indicates the commissioners are far removed from what was heard at the high court Tuesday.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) is no Berkeley-on-the-Hudson: Nothing burned during a student protest outside an October black-tie fundraiser hosted by school President Shirley Ann Jackson. But the protest and the ensuing disciplinary charges against two students at the Troy, N.Y., school highlights the lack of constitutional accountability at private institutions, including Christian colleges.