Chicago pastor Cristian Ionescu grew up in Romania watching communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu close churches, jail pastors, and brand Christians as criminals. When he heard the news that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker had issued an executive order banning religious gatherings of more than 10 people because of the coronavirus pandemic, Ionescu felt compelled to raise a challenge.

The battle regarding same-sex marriage seems to be over for now, in the way that the abortion battle is not. Pro-life counselors outside abortion businesses still contribute to some last-minute changes of heart, but pro–Biblical marriage counselors are not standing outside city halls and wedding chapels pleading with same-sex couples about to make their vows.

Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned whether the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can force employers—including religious organizations like the Little Sisters of the Poor—to offer birth control under their insurance plans.

A Catholic diocese in Texas has won the support of Protestants and Jews in a state Supreme Court case that deals with a church’s right to self-governance. Though the case is about how the diocese handled a sex abuse allegation, the ruling could have repercussions for religious autonomy.

The nuns of the Little Sisters of the Poor will have another day in court over the telephone on Wednesday amid a legal battle that has dragged on for more than six years. The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can require the Roman Catholic institute to provide contraceptives and abortifacients in its healthcare plans as mandated by the Affordable Care Act.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom warned of growing abuses of Muslims, Christians, and other religious minorities in India in its 2020 annual report released on Tuesday. This year, the commission added India to its Countries of Particular Concern list for the first time since 2004. The country’s ruling Hindu nationalist party instituted citizenship policies in January that USCIRF said could leave the country’s religious minorities, especially Muslims, without legal protections.

A protester on Saturday circled the governor’s mansion in Jackson, Miss., in a white Chevy Tahoe with the slogan “I prefer dangerous liberty to peaceful slavery” painted on the back windshield. Earlier in the week, a blond woman sat on the steps of the Kansas Capitol in Topeka with a sign that read, “My business, my choice.” And the week before, a man in Olympia, Wash., wearing a Seattle Seahawks jersey held up a sign that declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death.”