Here are 5 court things you may not have noticed, but these short items are important:
1. Court Loss: Religious Liberty
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from three California churches challenging a state daycare rule requiring children in a Christian school to be allowed to choose whether to attend religious activities.
The Supreme Court declined without comment to hear an appeal in the case of Foothills Christian Ministries v. Johnson, allowing a lower court ruling against the churches to remain in effect.
(Note: I’ve spoken at Foothills Church multiple times and watched as this Church stood strong against government overreach.)
Three San Diego-area churches – Grove Church, Journey Community Church and Foothills Christian Ministries – filed against California Attorney General Robert Bonta and then-California Department of Social Services Director Kim Johnson in June 2022.
The California Child Day Care Facilities Act, which the plaintiffs argued was unconstitutional because it required students enrolled in the churches’ daycare programs to be allowed to choose which religious services they wanted to attend.
In August 2025, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the churches, with Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz, an Obama appointee, authoring the unanimous opinion.
2. Court Justice: Religious Freedom Upheld
A Texas judge who was “disciplined” for declining to officiate same-sex weddings because of her religious beliefs has secured a legal victory, receiving a $10,000 settlement and more than $630,000 in attorneys’ fees.
A Travis County district court awarded the settlement to Judge Dianne Hensley, a Waco-based judge, who was sanctioned by the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct after declining to perform same-sex weddings.
Hensley received the maximum compensatory damages allowed under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act but also barred the Commission from “investigating, sanctioning, or disciplining” Hensley for refusing to officiate same-sex weddings because of her religious beliefs, regardless of whether she continues to perform marriages for opposite-sex couples.
3. Judicial Activist: The Ideological Signs Ordered to be Put Up in Our National Parks
I’ve written about how our museums, national historical areas and parks are filled with radical left and anti-Christian messages.
They have been indoctrination centers.
So before our July 4th 250th celebration Trump Tied to remove these signs.
But a Judicial Activist appointed by Biden said they must be put back up.
What did they say?
A sign at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, claimed that “the historic island fortress that sparked the beginning of the civil War may be underwater by the end of the century due to climate change.
Signs at Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., describing Francis G. Newlands, a congressman and senator from 1893 to 1917, “including details about his white supremacist views.”
A sign at George Washington’s house site in Philadelphia emphasized the slaves in George Washington’s household.
Hundreds of signs… ordered to be put back up!
4. Court Victory: First Amendment Election Protection
It is a win for freedom of speech. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission that spending is speech, and therefore federal limits on campaign spending are a violation of the First Amendment.
The decision is “a major win for the integrity of our political system,” said Senator Tim Scott.
5. Judicial Activist Orders DEI Plaques Restored
Judicial Activist Judge Angel Kelley of Massachusetts ordered Trump to reinstall every Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) plaque removed before America’s 250th anniversary.
Judge Kelley sided with the plaintiffs against the Department of the Interior, saying that the liberal DEI plaques, indoctrination and liberal lopsided view of American history as uniquely evil.