Here are highlights for November:
* On November 1, we filed our reply brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in our lawsuit against the City of Detroit and several City police officers, challenging their enforcement of various restrictions that prohibited pro-lifers from engaging in free speech activity during the Democrat presidential candidate debates held in July 2019 at the Fox Theatre in Detroit.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on behalf of Created Equal and its Founder Mark Harrington.
The lawsuit alleges that the City and several of its police officers violated the pro-lifers’ fundamental rights protected by the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
* On November 10, the Sixth Circuit granted our petition for en banc (full court) review in our case challenging the mask mandate for K-12 students on behalf of a Resurrection School, a Catholic School located in Michigan.
By doing so, the court vacated (erased) the prior adverse decision issued by a 3-judge panel.
We are co-counsel in this important case with the Great Lakes Justice Center.
* On November 16, we filed a petition for rehearing in the Sixth Circuit in our lawsuit filed on behalf of Catholic Healthcare International (CHI) against Genoa Charter Township.
In this case, we are defending CHI’s right to use its private property for religious expression and worship.
We appealed the district court’s denial of our request for a preliminary injunction. The lower court denied the injunction based on a claim that the Younger abstention doctrine prevented the court from ruling in our favor.
The Sixth Circuit vacated the lower court decision and remanded the case for the district court to reconsider its ruling.
Because of the urgency of the case (CHI is today not able to engage in religious worship on its private property), we requested that the Sixth Circuit not remand the case but, instead, rule on the merits and grant the injunction as time is of the essence.
* On November 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the lower court’s denial of our request for a preliminary injunction in our case challenging Pennsylvania’s contact tracing program and mask mandate.
The court held that our clients lacked standing to challenge the contact tracing program (even though they had already been subject to it) and that the challenge to the mask mandate was moot, even though the Governor and the Secretary of Health are free to reinstate it.
This is just a preliminary ruling. It is not a ruling on the merits. Our challenge continues in the district court.
* Throughout this month, we continued to help numerous individuals successfully obtain religious exemptions from the recent federal contractor vaccine mandate imposed by the Biden administration.
* We helped a veteran of the Ann Arbor, Michigan police department obtain an exemption to the City’s vaccine mandate.
* We were retained by several Navy SEALs to challenge the military vaccine mandate, and we have been assisting them with the necessary administrative process to set up a case for filing in federal court.
Thank you for your prayers and financial support. We couldn’t do what we do without them!