Becket Case Database

Oak Flat (known in Apache as Chi'chil Bildagoteel) is a sacred site in Arizona’s vibrant Tonto National Forest where Native Americans have gone to worship, pray, and conduct religious ceremonies since time immemorial. Recognizing its responsibility to Native peoples, ...

In 2017 a high school teacher at Cathedral Catholic High School in Indianapolis violated his agreement with the school, and centuries of Church teaching, by entering a same-sex civil union. After two years of deliberation, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis informed the ...

Oakwood Adventist Academy teaches its students to excel without compromising their faith, on and off the court. When a basketball semi-finals game was scheduled for the Sabbath, the school asked if it could swap game times so that Oakwood students ...

For over a decade, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes student club met at San Jose Unified School District schools in California without incident. But when a teacher within the district singled out FCA’s religious beliefs for ridicule, goaded students ...

Lorie Smith started her website and graphic design business, 303 Creative, to work on projects consistent with her religious beliefs. But when a Colorado law prevented her from expanding her services to include wedding websites—since she can’t in good ...

For 10 years, inmate Lester Smith has been fighting for his right to wear a beard in accordance with his Muslim religious beliefs. Even though 38 states and the Bureau of Prisons allow prisoners to have untrimmed beards, the Georgia Department of ...

Roncalli is a Catholic high school in Indianapolis that exists to transmit the Catholic faith to the next generation. To accomplish its religious mission, Roncalli asks all of its administrators, teachers, and guidance counselors to sign a contract agreeing to ...

The City of Boston allows community groups to hold flag-raising ceremonies and display flags of their choosing on one of the flagpoles near City Hall. After granting permits for nearly 300 different flag raisings, Boston issued its first permit denial in 2017 ...

Coach Kennedy, a former high school football coach, is at the Supreme Court to defend his right to kneel in brief, quiet prayer at midfield after games. Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, arguing that religious expression is ...

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte operates Catholic schools to accomplish a religious mission – not only to provide a robust academic education, but to help form students in the Catholic faith. To accomplish that mission, the Diocese asks all its ...

Sukhbir Toor is a captain in the Marine Corps and a devout member of the Sikh faith. When he joined the Marines, he was told he had to choose either his religious obligation to maintain a beard and wear other ...

For more than 40 years, St. Vincent Catholic Charities has been resettling refugee adults and families in the Lansing, Michigan area. St. Vincent helps refugees obtain housing, get needed medical care, find jobs, and build new lives safe from the dangers ...

The State of New York has enacted a COVID vaccine mandate that has banished government employees and private healthcare workers with religious objections to the vaccine from working in their respected fields in New York and stripped them of their ...

Father Alexander Belya claims that he was elected as a Vicar Bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). The Church and its leadership insist that he was not, and that he is not qualified to be a ...

A federal mandate issued in 2016 as part of Obamacare requires doctors and hospitals across the country to perform gender-transition procedures on any patient, including a child, even if the procedure violates the doctor’s conscience and could harm the patient. ...

Over 25,000 children are waiting for a forever family in the Texas foster care system. Motivated by their Catholic faith, the people of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston care for the poor, the widowed, and the immigrant. The Archdiocese would like to ...

In October 2020, Young Israel of Tampa, an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, submitted an ad to the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) seeking to advertise its annual celebration of Chanukah. HART rejected the ad because it was religious—and it has ...

A federal mandate issued in 2016 required doctors to perform gender transition procedures on any patient, including a child, even if the doctor believed the procedure would be harmful. The mandate was struck down in court after it was challenged by ...

For centuries—long before this nation was founded—the Klickitat and Cascade Tribes of Yakama Nation have considered areas surrounding Mount Hood, Oregon, to be sacred sites. When in 2006 the U.S. Federal Highway Administration announced a project to expand ...

Fuller Theological Seminary is one of the world’s leading Christian graduate educational institutions. It is a multidenominational, international, and multiethnic seminary committed to training global Christian leaders for the fulfillment of their religious callings in Christian ministries. At the ...

After decades of allowing the clergy to minister to the condemned in the death chamber, Texas changed its rules in 2019, refusing to allow clergy to a Buddhist inmate. After the Supreme Court ruled that Texas must allow the right of ...

In 2017, the New York State Department of Financial Services mandated that employers cover abortions in their employee health insurance plans. Following the order, a diverse coalition of religious groups that includes contemplative goat-herding Anglican nuns asked the New York state ...

The Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas serves families—primarily mothers and children—who would otherwise be left on the street. As a ministry of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, the Respite Center provides food, clothing, medical care, ...

One of the Navy’s most prominent admirals once said he would not tolerate any violation of the “rights or privileges” of sailors who grow beards, but today, Navy policy requires all sailors to be clean-shaven—even if their religious ...

In 1973, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade, reaching beyond the text of the Constitution to establish a right to abortion. Ever since, abortion advocates have waged proxy wars to expose and punish ...

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that all faiths have to be treated equally when it comes to the comfort of the clergy in the execution chamber, the Alabama Department of Corrections changed its policy from requiring a member of ...