Becket Case Database

Faruq Abdul-Aziz and Shakoor Mustafa were Newark, New Jersey police officers and devout Sunni Muslims whose religious beliefs required them to grow a beard. They both had beards while serving on the force for at least ten years, but in 1997 ...

For over 50 years, the Boise Rescue Mission has served the neediest in their community by providing addiction recovery programs, holiday meals, assistance with job searches, and youth activities. As a Christian ministry, the Mission has helped hundreds of people build ...

As a practicing Seventh-day Adventist, Mitche Dalberiste’s religious beliefs keep him from working from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Many employers take voluntary action to respect employees’ Sabbath, recognizing how central this practice is to many faiths. However, after ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic put life on hold for so many across the country, Capitol Hill Baptist Church suspended in-person services for the first time in its nearly 150 year history out of concern for the health and safety ...

Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers, is a floral artist and devout Christian who enjoys creating custom floral arrangements to celebrate her customers’ life events. In 2013 a long-time customer and friend asked Barronelle to do the flowers for his ...

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, was 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 ...

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 ...

This is the United States Supreme Court’s latest look at the religious freedom issues surrounding school choice. The state of Maine offers tuition assistance to students in rural areas who choose to attend private schools over commuting to far-away ...

Many Americans from many different religious traditions observe holy days such as Christmas or Yom Kippur, including, for some, a weekly Sabbath day. For Seventh-day Adventists, the Sabbath is observed from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, a time when they ...

Pastor Robert Soto is an award-winning feather dancer and Lipan Apache religious leader who was threatened with criminal fines and imprisonment for using eagle feathers in his religious worship. After an undercover federal agent raided his traditional religious ceremony and ...

Over millennia of human history and across many faith traditions, those condemned to death have been accompanied to their deaths by members of the clergy, who have prayed over them during their executions. And for 300 years, the American legal tradition ...

La legislación internacional sobre derechos humanos protege los derechos de las iglesias y organizaciones religiosas de decidir quién enseña sus creencias a la siguiente generación. A diferencia de los Estados Unidos, muchas escuelas gubernamentales en Chile ...

International human rights law protects the rights of churches and religious organizations to decide who teaches their beliefs to the next generation. Unlike in the United States, many government schools in Chile offer religion classes taught by educators who are ...

The United States Military Academy at West Point will now accommodate Sikh soldiers, allowing them to wear their essential articles of faith, after two young men persisted for the right to serve...

Joelle and Joseph Chung are siblings, avid high school tennis players, and active members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in their hometown, Chehalis, Washington. Joelle was a top player on her high-school tennis team, but in her senior year, she ...

Thousands of foster children nationwide are waiting for their forever family, but there are not enough families willing to foster and adopt. In Michigan, no one addresses this crisis more effectively than faith-based adoption agencies like St. Vincent Catholic Charities. ...

During the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has been a safe haven to its more than 655,000 parishioners. When the pandemic struck, Catholic Charities scaled back its services and ramped up its charitable efforts, serving more than ...

St. Andrew the Apostle Parish has been serving the city of Chicago for over 120 years. As music director at St. Andrew, Sandor Demkovich was responsible for planning liturgies, choosing the music for Masses and other important sacraments, and playing the ...

In response to calls from Pope Francis for greater transparency, Roman Catholic dioceses around the world have published lists of clergy credibly accused of sexually abusing a “minor,” which is defined by Catholic canon law to include adults lacking full ...