RELIGION HEADLINES SAT 5-10-25

Audio By Carbonatix

(SRN NEWS) – Chief Justice John Roberts appears to hold the key vote on whether the Supreme Court will allow the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school, in Oklahoma.  Roberts was the only justice whose vote seemed in doubt after the court heard more than two hours of arguments last month in a major church-state case.  Four conservative justices seemed firmly on the side of the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School and the state charter school board that approved it.  The liberal justices seemed just as likely to vote to affirm an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that held that the taxpayer-funded school would violate the First Amendment. 

(  )  The Trump administration is calling for more reliance on psychotherapy for transgender youth instead of hormone shots and sex-change operations.  A report from the Department of Health and Human Services questions the current practices and medical groups that endorse them.  The administration’s position springs from President Trump’s executive order calling for the federal government not to support so-called “gender transition” for people under the age of 19.  A court has put some parts of the president’s order on hold.  

(  )  Battles over boycotts of Israel are playing out at the state level.  So far, 38 states have passed laws or executive orders that penalize contractors or companies that refuse to do business with the Jewish State.  Now pro-Palestinian groups are organizing efforts to repeal such legislation in Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin.  The issue first came to the fore with the establishment of the Palestinian campaign called Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.  It seeks to force Israel to give away some of its territory to the Palestinians — something Israel has already done. 

(  )  Men are to be banned outright from women’s and girls’ cricket in the United Kingdom.  The England and Wales Cricket Board has updated its previous restrictions following a U.K. Supreme Court ruling in April.  The ECB says men who are living as women can continue playing in open and mixed cricket competitions.  The announcement comes shortly after men were banned from playing on women’s soccer teams in England and Scotland.  The high court decided that for anti-discrimination purposes, only people who were born biologically female can be considered women.