In the News (December 2025)
Jewish group: We want religious charter school
A Jewish group based in Florida is seeking permission to operate the nation’s first taxpayer-funded online religious charter school in Oklahoma.
The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter Foundation notified the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board on Nov. 3 of its intent to apply for taxpayer funding for a virtual school initially serving about 40 students in grades 9 through 12.
That development, legal experts said, could restart a bitter fight over government support for religious schools that reached the U.S. Supreme Court this year.
The nation’s high court deadlocked, 4-4, leaving in force an earlier Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that barred state funding for a Catholic online charter school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The state court found the school would violate Oklahoma law, the state Constitution and the U.S. Constitution.
Leslie Berger, a spokesperson for Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, referred back to the state Supreme Court ruling in the St. Isidore case, taken by Drummond.
Donations pulled after school posts Ten Commandments
The installation of Ten Commandments posters on the University of Arkansas’ Fayetteville campus has led to the revocation of scholarships and discussions about the constitutionality of the displays.
In October, university officials announced they would hang around 500 Ten Commandments posters donated by the Christian organization Counteract USA to comply with a new state law that requires “a historical representation” of the tenets be “prominently” displayed in public school classrooms and libraries, public institutions of higher education, and public buildings and facilities maintained by taxpayer funds.
As a “very strong believer of separation of church and state,” UA alum Andy Kinslow said he was angry to learn about the posters. Learning about the Ten Commandments posters “was the tipping point” that made him decide to pull both of his scholarships from the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design and remove the department from his will.
“Why would I give money to an institution that is not fighting this law when there are lots of other places that the money could go that would be appreciated,” Kinslow said.
For his actions, Kinslow was named FFRF Action Fund’s “Secularist of the Week” on Nov. 14.
New Orleans abuse victims OK $230M settlement
In a nearly unanimous vote, hundreds of victims of child sexual abuse by clergy and other church creditors approved a $230 million bankruptcy settlement with the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans.
The archdiocese reported in a court filing in October that the deal was accepted by a staggering 99.63 percent of creditors, excluding a small group of bond investors who voted against it while suing the church and alleging it committed securities fraud.
The church did not report the total number of votes cast but said “hundreds of survivors voted overwhelmingly to accept the plan,” which will dole out payments to victims of abuse based on points assigned for the severity and effects of the abuse — and includes agreements to release files on abusive priests and deacons and set up stronger protections for children and vulnerable adults.
Court: Medication abortion restrictions are unlawful
A federal district court ruled Oct. 30 that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) imposition of medically unnecessary restrictions on the medication abortion pill mifepristone violated federal law. While this ruling does not change patients’ ability to access medication abortion in the near term, it affirms the FDA’s legal obligation to consider the overwhelming evidence of mifepristone’s safety and not to impose restrictions that unduly burden patient access to this essential medication.
The court’s finding that the agency failed to justify its restrictions on access to mifepristone comes as the Trump administration appears to be gearing up to make it even harder for people to get the medication nationwide.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced that the FDA is conducting a new review of its mifepristone regulations. Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has indicated that the review centers on a junk science paper, issued by a Project 2025 sponsor, that purposefully distorts the excellent safety record of medication abortion. This paper is a six-page, non-peer-reviewed document that has been denounced by more than 260 expert researchers for its lack of transparency and gravely flawed methodology.
Bishops ban trans care at Catholic hospitals
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, during its annual fall meeting, updated its Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services by specifically prohibiting Catholic hospitals from medical interventions to help transgender individuals “transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body).”
Transgender Catholics object that the USCCB has failed to meaningfully consult their community. The bishops “really have shown no willingness at all to understand the reality that transgender people are experiencing and to shape our care and ministry around the realities of their lives,” said Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy organization DignityUSA. “Any kind of barrier to health care just makes it harder for trans people and for lots of other Catholics to feel included in our church. It feels very discriminatory and like our lives and our health just don’t matter to church officials in the same way that other people’s do.”
Assemblies of God shielded sex predators
Since the 1970s, Assemblies of God churches have repeatedly reinstated ministers and volunteer leaders accused of sexual misconduct, returning them to pulpits and youth groups, an NBC News investigation found.
While some of the other largest Christian denominations now require safeguards such as background checks and mandatory reporting, national Assemblies of God leaders have resisted, arguing such rules would increase legal risk, undermine its commitment to local church autonomy and defy a core biblical command: to forgive. The result is a patchwork system that has protected accused predators and left generations of children in danger.
NBC News identified nearly 200 Assemblies of God pastors, church employees and volunteer leaders accused of sexual abuse over the past half century. Together, they allegedly abused more than 475 people — the overwhelming majority of them children.
Of the alleged abusers, 123 were ministers, and nearly half of those were youth pastors. Others were church employees, youth group leaders or Sunday school teachers. Dozens were accused of luring boys through the Royal Rangers, a Pentecostal version of the Boy Scouts.
Supreme Court won’t hear case over prayer at games
The Supreme Court on Nov. 17 declined to take up a legal fight involving a Christian school that wanted to broadcast a pregame prayer over the stadium loudspeaker before a championship football game, turning away a major religious liberty dispute on the heels of a 2022 decision involving prayer in schools.
In rejecting the appeal, the high court will not reconsider a 25-year-old decision that found student-led and initiated prayer at football games unconstitutional. There were no noted dissents.
The legal battle before the justices was brought by a Tampa-based Christian school that wanted to broadcast a brief prayer before a state championship football game through the stadium’s public-address system. But the Florida High School Athletic Association denied the request, which the schools argued violated their rights to free exercise of religion and free speech.
The school, Cambridge Christian, asked the Supreme Court to overturn its 2000 ruling in the case Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe. In that decision, the court held that the school district’s policy of allowing student-led, student-initiated prayer at football games violated the Establishment Clause.
Drop in U.S. religiosity among largest in world
The percentage of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their daily life dropped from 66 percent in 2015 to 49 percent today. That 17-percent change ranks among the largest Gallup has recorded in any country over any 10-year period.
Only a small number of mostly wealthy nations have experienced larger losses in religiosity, including Greece from 2013-2023 (28 points), Italy from 2012-2022 (23 points) and Poland from 2013-2023 (22 points).
As religiosity has declined in the United Sates, the gap between it and the global median has widened. The global median for religiosity has remained stable for nearly two decades, averaging 81 percent since 2007.
At the same time, attitudes in the United States are drawing closer to those in other advanced economies. Across the 38 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries in 2024, a median of 36 percent of adults said religion is important to their daily lives. The gap between the United States and the median for these countries is now narrower than at any point in Gallup’s trend.
