Sued

Kathleen Lorentzen, therapist and social worker, brought a lawsuit against her employer for religious discrimination under Title VII after she was fired for refusing to counsel a gay couple. Lorentzen provided therapy for over 20 years at HealthSource Saginaw in Michigan including counseling gay patients. However, when another therapist referred a gay couple to her for marriage counseling, Lorentzen asked to pass on the referral. She said that as a Catholic it would violate her belief about the sanctity of marriage. She says that after a meeting with an angry supervisor she was fired.

Dropped

The number of births in the United States is the lowest it has been since 1978, according to a recent study by the National Center for Health Statistics. Last year, only 3.85 million babies were born in the United States, and the total fertility rate dropped to 1.76 births per woman. Some demographers say the decline is the result of more and more women choosing to have careers before having children. This is suggested by the increase recorded in births to women ages 40-44. The U.S. birthrate has been dropping since the baby boomer generation, with a severe decline in 2008. Other developed countries have also seen sharp declines in their birthrates since the 1960s.

Appointed

Mid-May saw a rush of appointments to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins will join the commission, along with Gary Bauer, founder of the FRC; Nadine Maenza, a top aide to former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.; and Johnnie Moore, a Trump evangelical adviser. Democratic leaders appointed Tenzin Dorjee to another term on the commission and had earlier selected Gayle Manchin, wife of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, for a USCIRF seat. The USCIRF is an independent commission that investigates incidents of religious persecution worldwide and reports on them to the State Department. Critics said many of the commissioners lacked experience on issues involving international religious freedom.

Freed

Dontia Patterson is free after spending 11 years in prison falsely accused of murder. At age 17, Patterson’s best friend was shot on a city street in Philadelphia close to where Patterson lived. Patterson called for medical assistance, but police arrested him for the murder. He pleaded not guilty, and the case went through two trials before he was sentenced to life in prison. When the Pennsylvania Innocence Project took up his case, the group discovered suppressed evidence, including a confidential witness who linked the murder to drug turf wars and another who said the murderer looked nothing like Patterson. After an investigation by the district, a judge agreed to drop the charges against Patterson.

Charged

Police in Nepal arrested Peter Dalglish, a Canadian lawyer known for helping street children around the globe, on charges of raping Nepali boys. Dalglish has been working with children since the 1980s when he co-founded Street Kids International. For the past 10 years, he has lived off-and-on in Nepal, and he built a home in the village of Kartike. Plainclothes police made friends with four boys in the village, and one told them that Dalglish had raped them for seven years, promising them a future abroad if they were silent. Dalglish denies all charges. If convicted, he faces 13 years in prison.