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Repent America (RA) is a Christian organization based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. [1]
A three-judge panel with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously overturned the federal convictions of Marcavage, director of RA, for preaching on the public sidewalk near the Liberty Bell, stemming from an arrest in 2007, citing that "the government impermissibly infringed Marcavage's First Amendment right to free speech." Judges Michael Fisher, Thomas Hardiman and Robert Cowen issued a 52-page decision in Marcavage's favor, striking down both of the prosecution's criminal claims against Marcavage, while upholding his constitutionally protected right to preach and speak on the public sidewalks surrounding Independence National Historical Park.
On October 10, 2004, eleven members of RA were arrested and charged under Pennsylvania's hate crimes law while preaching at OutFest, a gay pride event in Philadelphia. The charges against the members of the group could have resulted in up to 47 years in prison each. All the charges were later dismissed by Common Pleas Court Judge Pamela Dembe as being without merit.
On November 15, 2007, following a legal action brought by RA, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in a 4-to-1 decision struck down amendments to the state's "hate crimes" law, formally known as the Ethnic Intimidation Act, under which the members had been charged in 2004. The published opinion, Marcavage, et al. v. Rendell, et al. , declared that the amendments enacted in 2002, protecting people based upon "actual or perceived . . . ancestry, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity," were "unconstitutional and therefore null and void" due to the process in which the law was passed. Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell and the state Legislature then appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which ruled in favor of Marcavage, affirming the lower court's ruling that the Legislature acted unlawfully.[ citation needed ]
Following the judgement against intelligent design supporters in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial where a judge decided that it was unconstitutional for Dover Area High School's school board to require teachers to tell students that Darwin's theory of evolution is "not a fact," members of Repent America went door-to-door. [2] The group visited thousands of homes to proselytize and invited residents to a Repent America sponsored creation seminar hosted by Kent Hovind in the Dover Area High School auditorium. [3] [4]
Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of teaching creationism. The Court considered a Louisiana law requiring that where evolutionary science was taught in public schools, creation science must also be taught. The Court ruled that this law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion. It also held that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction."
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. The court ruled in an 8–1 decision that Pennsylvania's Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act from 1968 was unconstitutional, violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The act allowed the Superintendent of Public Schools to reimburse private schools for the salaries of teachers who taught in these private elementary schools from public textbooks and with public instructional materials.
Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case deciding on the issue of silent school prayer.
Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided 8–1 in favor of the respondent, Edward Schempp on behalf of his son Ellery Schempp, and declared that school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools in the United States was unconstitutional. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during this case was Earl Warren.
Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Constitution prohibits segregated public schools in the District of Columbia. Originally argued on December 10–11, 1952, a year before Brown v. Board of Education, Bolling was reargued on December 8–9, 1953, and was unanimously decided on May 17, 1954, the same day as Brown. The Bolling decision was supplemented in 1955 with the second Brown opinion, which ordered desegregation "with all deliberate speed". In Bolling, the Court did not address school desegregation in the context of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, which applies only to the states, but rather held that school segregation was unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court observed that the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution lacked an Equal Protection Clause, as in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court held, however, that the concepts of Equal Protection and Due Process are not mutually exclusive, establishing the reverse incorporation doctrine.
Joseph Philo Bradley was an American jurist best known for his service on the United States Supreme Court, and on the Electoral Commission that decided the disputed 1876 presidential election.
The Thomas More Law Center is a Christian, conservative, nonprofit, public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and active throughout the United States. According to its website, its goals are to "preserve America's Judeo-Christian heritage, defend the religious freedom of Christians, restore time-honored moral and family values, protect the sanctity of human life, and promote a strong national defense and a free and sovereign United States of America."
John Edward Jones III is the Chief United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. He is best known for his presiding role in the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case, in which the teaching of "intelligent design" in public school science classes was ruled to be unconstitutional. In 2014, he ruled that Pennsylvania's 1996 ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.
Rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Utah are among the most extensive in the United States. Protective laws have become increasingly enacted since 2014, despite the state's reputation as socially conservative and highly religious. Same-sex marriage has been legal since the state's ban on same-sex marriage was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court on October 6, 2014. In addition, statewide anti-discrimination laws now cover sexual orientation and gender identity in employment and housing, and the use of conversion therapy on minors is prohibited. In spite of this, there are still a few differences between treatment of LGBT people and the rest of the population.
Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court holding that the practice of requiring only men to register for the draft was constitutional. After extensive hearings, floor debate and committee sessions on the matter, the United States Congress enacted the law, as it had previously been, to apply to men only. Several attorneys, including Robert L. Goldberg, subsequently challenged the gender distinction as unconstitutional. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court held that this gender distinction was not a violation of the equal protection component of the due process clause, and that the Act would stand as passed.
Ballot Measure 2 of 1998 is a ballot measure, since ruled unconstitutional, that added an amendment to the Alaska Constitution that prohibited the recognition of same-sex marriage in Alaska. The Ballot measure was sparked by the lawsuit filed by Jay Brause and Gene Dugan, after the two men were denied a marriage license by the Alaska Bureau of Vital Statistics. In Brause v. Bureau of Vital Statistics, 1998 WL 88743, the Alaska Superior Court ruled that the state needed compelling reason to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples and ordered a trial on the question. In response, the Alaska Legislature immediately proposed and passed Resolution 42, which became what is now known as Ballot Measure 2. Ballot Measure 2 passed via public referendum on November 3, 1998, with 68% of voters supporting and 32% opposing. The Bause case was dismissed following the passage of the ballot measure.
Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U.S. 464 (1948), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a Michigan law, which prohibited women from being licensed as a bartender in all cities having a population of 50,000 or more unless their father or husband owned the establishment. Valentine Goesaert, the plaintiff in the case, challenged the law on the ground that it infringed on the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Speaking for the majority, Justice Felix Frankfurter affirmed the judgment of the Detroit district court and upheld the constitutionality of the state law. The state argued that since the profession of bartending could potentially lead to moral and social problems for women, it was within the state's power to bar them from working as bartenders. Only when the owner of the bar was a sufficiently close relative to the women bartender could it be guaranteed that such immorality would not be present.
Nullification, in United States constitutional history, is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional with respect to the United States Constitution. The theory of nullification has never been legally upheld by federal courts.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Alabama face legal and social challenges not faced by non-LGBT persons. A socially conservative state in both the Deep South and the greater Bible Belt, LGBT rights there are limited in comparison to other states. The state's anti-discrimination law does not cover sexual orientation and gender identity. Gender identity discrimination, however, is prohibited by federal law, through a ruling of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Same-sex marriage has been legal since June 2015.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, queer (LGBT) people in Texas face legal and social challenges and discrimination not faced by other people. Same-sex sexual activity is legal in the state. On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled bans on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges. Texas has a hate crime statute that strengthens penalties for certain crimes motivated by a victim's sexual orientation, although it has never been invoked. Gender identity is not included in the hate crime law. There is no statewide law banning anti-LGBT discrimination. However, some localities in Texas have ordinances that provide a variety of legal protections and benefits to LGBT people.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in the U.S. state of Indiana may face some legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Indiana since October 6, 2014, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal in the case of Baskin v. Bogan.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in the U.S. state of Nebraska may face some legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Same-sex sexual activity is legal in Nebraska, as is same-sex marriage. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is not banned statewide however, though the state's largest city, Omaha, has enacted provisions banning such discrimination.
Trinsey v. Pennsylvania, 941 F.2d 224, was a case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that confirmed the validity of special elections held without a primary under the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The case came about due to the death of H. John Heinz III, one of the US Senators from Pennsylvania, in a plane crash on April 4, 1991. Under the Seventeenth Amendment, state legislatures may give the Governor the power to appoint officials to fill temporarily vacant Senate seats until a special election can be held, and Pennsylvanian law contained a statute executing this and requiring no primaries for the special election. Instead, both the Democrats and Republicans would each internally select their candidates. John S. Trinsey Jr., a voter and potential candidate, asked the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to declare the statute unconstitutional as a violation on the Fourteenth and Seventeenth amendments, because the lack of a primary removed his right to properly vote for candidates and delegated that power to political parties.
Gun laws in Pennsylvania regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States.
Hate speech in the United States is not regulated, due to the robust right to free speech found in the American Constitution. This is in line with the regulations of most democracies, such as Germany, France, Italy or Austria. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that hate speech is legally protected free speech under the First Amendment. The most recent Supreme Court case on the issue was in 2017, when the justices unanimously reaffirmed that there is effectively no "hate speech" exception to the free speech rights protected by the First Amendment.
