Tag Archives: State: Oklahoma

San Francisco Chronicle: Plaques displaying the Ten Commandments have been removed from classrooms in the Muldrow School District after its board opted to “honor thy constitution” rather than risk a federal lawsuit.

ACLU: As part of the department’s community policing initiative, Capt. Paul Fields was directed to attend, or send officers from his division to attend the event. Fields refused, claiming that to attend or to send officers to the event would violate his religious beliefs, which require him to proselytize anyone who does not share his Christian faith . . . A copy of the brief can be seen at: aclu.org/religion-belief/fields-v-city-tulsa-amicus-brief

News9.com: Two freshman Democratic senators from conservative states, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, have joined the growing chorus of lawmakers who say they support gay marriage.

Newson6.com: The House approved the resolution Monday on an 84-0 vote. House Democratic Leader Scott Inman and openly gay Rep. Kay Floyd of Oklahoma City were among more than half of the chamber’s 29 Democrats who walked out of the chamber instead of voting.

Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Monday in support of an Oklahoma law that requires doctors prescribing the abortion drug RU-486 to use only the FDA required protocol for the drug. T

Religion Clause Blog: According to the EEOC complaint, a Tulsa, Oklahoma branch manager advertised for an operations supervisor through the website of a Tulsa church. When Edward Wolf who was not a member of that church applied for the position, most of his job interview focused on his religious activities and beliefs.

KTUL.com: A bill designed to allow public school students to express religious viewpoints and organize prayer groups has passed the House despite concerns the measure could actually lead to more lawsuits against schools.

LifeNews: The Oklahoma state legislature today approved a measure that would allow parents to be notified when their minor daughter is considering an abortion. Such a law would help parents steer their young daughters in a better direction.

LifeNews: Oklahomans for Life is supporting the Parental Notification for Abortion Act, HB 1588, which requires that a parent of a minor must be notified before an abortion can be performed on her.

NewOK.com: Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. is asking a federal appeals court to expedite its case against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in hopes of avoiding millions of dollars in fines the company could face this summer for failing to cover the cost of emergency contraceptives for its employees.

Today, the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed its opening brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in defense of Captain Paul Fields, a Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer who was summarily punished for refusing to attend and refusing to assign officers under his command who shared his religious beliefs to attend a mandated Islamic proselytizing event held at a local mosque.

ENIDnews.com: Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by the Oklahoma Supreme Court that invalidated a state anti-abortion statute. | Cline v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice

Moore American: Cleveland County Commissioners will join a handful of Oklahoma county commissioners that have added prayer at the beginning of the weekly meetings. In this case, Commissioner Rusty Sullivan pointed out that the prayer will be conducted prior to the meeting being called to order.

NewsOK.com: House Bill 1940, by Bennett, would allow school boards to adopt policies giving students the right to deliver an inspirational message, even if it has a religious theme, at school assemblies.

San Francisco Chronicle: A bill that would make it more difficult for girls younger than 18 to receive an abortion without notifying their parents was one of three abortion-related measures that easily cleared a House committee on Tuesday.

Travis Barham appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the Cowboys for Life case at Oklahoma State University. | MP3 audio 13:35 mins

Campus Reform: Travis Barham, the litigation staff counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization that filed the lawsuit on behalf of Cowboys for Life, told Campus Reform he thinks the school broke the law by placing unreasonable restrictions on students’ First Amendment rights. “The university doesn’t require this of other groups, they made up special restrictions for this pro-life group…simply because of the content and the viewpoint of what the Cowboys for Life were trying to say,” Barham said.

One News Now: Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorney Travis Barham says school officials claimed other students might be “offended” by the pro-life message. “OSU needs to learn that it does not have free reign to censor its students,” he insists. “It can’t exile displays to remote areas of campus, or restrict students from distributing literature just because the hyper-sensitive feelings of a university administrator got ruffled.”

Daily Caller: An attorney on the side of the plaintiffs, Travis Barham, describes the case as a “textbook violation” of the First Amendment.
. . . “The leaders decided they would pass a resolution for the students to be investigated and brought up on disciplinary charges,” Barham told The O’Collegian. “That constitutes retaliation.”

LifeNews: “Universities should promote, not quarantine, the free exchange of ideas,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Litigation Staff Counsel Travis Barham. “Oklahoma State University does not have free reign to censor students. The university can’t exile this club’s displays or restrict students from distributing literature simply because their materials challenge a narrow orthodoxy or offend the hyper-sensitive feelings of administrators.”

Cowboys for Life, a student organization represented by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, has filed a federal lawsuit against Oklahoma State University after school officials took numerous actions to impede and disrupt the group’s pro-life displays on campus.

Tulsa World: Brently Olsson, the group’s attorney, said the signs and leaflets featured pictures of an aborted fetus. The group uses the graphic imagery to show the result of abortion, Olsson said.

Norman Transcripts: The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma and CAIR-Oklahoma, the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, recently expressed their appreciation to the Oklahoma Bankers’ Association for clarifying a security measure commonly referred to as “No Hats, No Hoods, No Sunglasses” employed by many of Oklahoma’s banks to better take into account the religious requirements of some customers to cover all or a portion of their heads.

NewsOK: Tom Colbert, sworn in as chief justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court the same week America was commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, recalled Friday the sacrifices that family members and others made for him to attain that position.

LifeSiteNews: Oklahoma had the right to deny Planned Parenthood nearly half-a-million dollars in state contracts because of the abortion provider’s “persistent unresponsiveness” to state queries for routine information, a federal judge has ruled.

Religion Clause Blog: In Fields v. City of Tulsa, (ND OK, Dec. 13, 2012), an Oklahoma federal district court rejected objections by a Christian police officer to a directive that he either attend or find volunteers to appear at a Law Enforcement Appreciation Day hosted by the Islamic Society of Tulsa.

American Freedom Law Center: Today, Robert J. Muise, Co-Founder and Senior Counsel of the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC), is presenting oral argument at a hearing in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma on behalf of Captain Paul Fields, a Tulsa police officer who was summarily punished for refusing to attend a mandated Islamic proselytizing event held at a local mosque.

Tulsa World: The measure would have required any woman seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound within an hour of the procedure and to have its results explained to her before the procedure. | OKLAHOMA COALITION FOR REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE v. CLINE, 2012 OK 102 (No. 110765) (Dec. 4, 2012)

Muskogee Phoenix: Exactly one year after a crash killed a Muskogee teenager, a complaint has been filed against the judge who sentenced the driver to church.

Religion Clause Blog: In In re Steven Charles Harvey, (OK Ct. Civil App., Nov. 20, 2012), an Oklahoma appeals court held that a trial court judge abused his discretion in denying Steven Charles Harvey, who was undergoing a sex change, the right to change his name to Christie Ann Harvey

NY Times: Initially there was little outcry in Muskogee, Okla., last week when a judge, as a condition of a youth’s probation for a driving-related manslaughter conviction, sentenced him to attend church regularly for 10 years.

Religion Clause Blog: Now in Independent School District No. 5 of Tulsa County v. Spry, (OK Sup. Ct., Nov. 20, 2012), in a 7-2 decision, the Oklahoma Supreme Court reversed that decision on standing grounds. It held that the school districts which were plaintiffs in the lawsuit lack standing because they are not taxpayers who have a right to challenge the program . . .

Religion Clause Blog: In Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, (WD OK, Nov. 19, 2012), an Oklahoma federal district court denied a preliminary injunction, rejecting both 1st Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act claims by Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., Mardel, Inc. and …

Tulsa World: A Ten Commandments monument was installed Thursday on the north grounds of the state Capitol

Religion Clause Blog: ABC News reports that a state trial court judge in Oklahoma has sentenced a teenager to a probation arrangement that includes a requirement that he attend the church of his choice every week for ten years.

KTUL.com: Some civil rights groups say legal action is possible over a Ten Commandments monument installed Thursday on the Oklahoma state Capitol grounds.

NewsOK.com: With President Barack Obama’s victory, the nominations of U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert E. Bacharach and Tulsa attorney John E. Dowdell should “fly through” the Senate, Sen. Tom Coburn said Wednesday.

AP: The U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City is scheduled to hear the company’s arguments in favor of an injunction Thursday. The government says Hobby Lobby is a secular employer that by definition does not exercise religion.

ENIDNews.com: A new poll shows a new mandate in the Affordable Care Act, or the so-called “Obamacare,” is not popular in the state. SoonerPoll.com’s survey of 305 likely voting Oklahomans found 57% opposed the new mandate and 33% supported it, with 10% undecided.

Liberty Counsel: Today, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the Oklahoma Personhood Initiative case of Personhood Oklahoma v. Barber. Last spring, the Oklahoma Supreme Court stopped a citizen’s initiative before it was even placed on the ballot.

Ocolly.com: The Justice For All organization made a controversial appearance this week on campus, displaying an anti-abortion exhibit that was established in 2000.

News9.com (includes video): A Roman Catholic priest, on a mission to end abortion, is gaining some attention as he builds a prayer chapel right next to an abortion clinic.

Brian Walsh at National Review: Today, a bipartisan group of over 100 legislators in nine states is announcing the nation’s first state legislative caucuses focused solely on religious freedom. These working groups of legislative leaders are being established in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. This is the first installment in a national plan to form state religious-freedom caucuses in all 50 states by the end of 2013.

LJWorld: Claiming religious freedom is under assault, 120 legislators in nine states, including Kansas, announced on Tuesday the formation of caucuses that they said would be dedicated to protecting religion from government intrusion.

Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy: Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt today filed an amended complaint in the state’s lawsuit against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that, among other things, challenges the legality of an IRS rule that would authorize tax credits for the purchase of health insurance in federally run exchanges, and thereby expose Oklahoma employers to penalties should they fail to comply with the law’s employer mandate.

The Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) is urging the United States Supreme Court to review a decision of the Oklahoma Supreme Court striking a ballot initiative that would amend the Oklahoma Constitution to define “person” as “any human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being to natural death.” In a friend of the court brief filed last week, the LLDF told the Court that the Oklahoma court ruling conflicted with prior Supreme Court precedent and should be reversed.

KRMG.com: It just might be the very first time ever in Tulsa that an atheist will lead the prayer before the next meeting at city hall.

Thomas More Law Center: The Federal lawsuit involved the disciplinary action taken against Captain Fields after he refused orders to attend a Mosque event because it conflicted with his Christian faith and had nothing to do with any official police function. He also told his superiors that he would not require any of his subordinates to follow the order if they shared similar religious convictions.

NewsOK.com: The U.S. Senate failed to advance the nomination of Robert E. Bacharach, an Oklahoma City magistrate, falling four votes short of breaking a Republican filibuster that has become presidential election-year custom.

NewsOK.com: Federal magistrate Robert E. Bacharach, of Oklahoma City, may need both Oklahoma Republican senators to break ranks with the GOP in showdown vote on Monday.

Washington Post: The Supreme Court may have declared that the government can order Americans to get health insurance, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to sign up.

NewsOK.com: Senate Republicans are blocking votes for nominees to federal appeals courts, and leaders in Oklahoma’s legal community want the state’s GOP senators to intervene for Robert E. Bacharach.

Fox News: But Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla., became the ninth Congressional incumbent to lose a primary Tuesday night.
Sullivan faced tea party favorite Jim Bridenstine in the congressional district that includes Tulsa.

Related AP report: GOP lawmaker loses in Okla., Hatch wins in Utah

The Church Report: They say no good deed goes unpunished. An Oklahoma volunteer police officer may lose his position on the force over an act of kindness by his neighbors.

AP: Here’s a look at the 10 states with the lowest funding percentages in 2010, according a new report from the Pew Center on the States . . .

USA Today: The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed suit against a Tulsa lighting store charging that the company required prospective workers to be Christian, the Tulsa Worldreports.

Ardmoreite.com: An advocacy group, Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, Wisc., believes the invocation at the start of the commission meetings is in violation of the Constitution.

NewsOK.com: Robert E. Bacharach and John E. Dowdell will get another chance on June 7 for a vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee

Tulsa World: The state House approved a measure that would continue the life of an oversight committee that handles state employee United Way contributions, despite arguments that it was a way of using state tax money to fund abortion.

EnidNews.com: Fallin nominated former Corporation Commissioner Jim Roth to the Oklahoma State Election Board last fall. Roth has since served as a member of the election board, pending a Senate confirmation hearing.

Religion Clause Blog: In Cressman v. Thompson, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68236 (WD OK, May 16, 2012), and Oklahoma federal district court rejected a claim by an Oklahoma driver that the picture on the state’s standard license plates compel him to express a message contrary to his religious beliefs.

Edmondsun.com: Grau called the ruling “unprecedented,” and said the judge long-jumped Oklahoma’s right, and a duty, to regulate the use of drugs and medicine within its borders. He compared the issue to the debate surrounding regulation and access to the non-prescription drug pseudoephedrine, a drug used to relieve nasal congestion caused by colds that is also an ingredient used to make meth.

NECN: An Oklahoma law restricting the use of certain abortion-inducing drugs has been ruled unconstitutional by a district court judge, who said it violates “the fundamental rights of women to privacy and bodily integrity.” | Center for Reproductive Rights press release

NewsOK.com: The House of Representatives unanimously approved a measure Wednesday that would allow a woman to bring a lawsuit against abortion providers and prescribers of abortion-inducing drugs or chemicals for not following voluntary and informed consent provisions of state law related to abortions. House Bill 2561 . . .

NewsOK.com: The nominations for two long-vacant judicial positions may soon go before a Senate committee now that Sen. Tom Coburn has given the green light. The White House has struggled to find judicial candidates that meet with the approval of Oklahoma’s senators.

Christian Newswire: Steve Crampton, Vice President for Legal Affairs and General Counsel for Liberty Counsel, who represents Personhood Oklahoma, said: “This ruling epitomizes judicial overreaching. It not only misinterprets and misapplies federal constitutional law, but it also denies states’ rights and strips Oklahomans of their right to petition for a substantive change in state law, which is guaranteed under the state constitution. We are hopeful that the United States Supreme Court will reverse this decision.”

The Hill: The personhood proposal in Oklahoma is “clearly unconstitutional,” the state supreme court said in a unanimous ruling Monday. Abortion-rights supporters hailed the decision. | Center for Reproductive Rights press release | In re Initiative Petition No. 395 State …

Durant Daily Democrat: Anti-abortion activists urged House Republicans to bring a “personhood” bill to the floor for a vote and vowed on Tuesday to label any lawmaker who refuses to support the move as “pro-abortion.”

LifeSiteNews: The steady stream of legislation strengthening protections for unborn children and draining funds from the abortion industry has continued in recent weeks. Here are a few of the latest developments . . .

Personhood USA at the Christian Newswire: “We are not surprised that there are a few Republicans such as Representative Doug Cox and House Speaker Steele, who wish to suppress life-affirming and pro-family legislation such as the Personhood Act,” commented Keith Mason, Personhood USA President. “However, it is surprising that these Republicans can be allowed to do everything in their power to kill a bill and then blame the entire Republican caucus. It is not too late – truly pro-life Oklahoma Representatives can still call for a vote and pass SB 1433.”

Reuters: State Representative Randy Terrill, a conservative Republican, called the announcement of the bill’s failure “stunning” and complained the speaker “threw the caucus under the bus.” “There was no vote in the caucus,” he complained. Instead, there was a private “whip count” in which party floor leaders polled fellow Republicans on the matter, Terrill said.

Reuters: Oklahoma’s Personhood Act passed the state Senate in February and is expected to be approved by the Republican-controlled House within weeks. The state’s Republican governor, Mary Fallin, is an abortion opponent and is expected to sign the bill if it passes.

Matt Sharp on the Hugh Hewitt Show. | MP3 audio 5:26 mins | ADF Memo: Constitutional Rights of Students, Teachers, and Public Schools to Seasonal
Religious Expression | ADF press release: Owasso Kids for Christ v. Owasso Public Schools resource page | ADF press release: ADF files suit after school district prohibited third-grader’s handwritten Bible club invitations

One News Now: ADF litigation staff counsel Matt Sharp says the club was forced to file a lawsuit when Owasso Public School District officials told them the religious nature of their organization meant they could not promote it (see earlier story). [more quotes]

Fox23.com: A lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund representing Owasso Kids for Christ released the following statement about the settlement: “A Christian organization should have the same right to publicize its voluntary meetings as other groups do,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Matt Sharp. “The district has done the right thing in revising its unconstitutional policy. That will allow ‘Kids for Christ’ and other similar groups to have the same access to publicize their events to students that all other groups enjoy.”