Legal Docket: Religious liberty in the dock

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 4th day of August, 2025. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Lindsey Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. It’s time for Legal Docket.

That music you hear is singer Colton Dixon’s hit song on the Christian music charts, Up and Up. Earlier this year, it was briefly at the center of a controversy in an elementary school in Michigan

MAST: Back in May, a couple of students wanted to perform Christian tunes for the talent show. One was Dixon’s song. But school administrators refused, arguing the songs were too “Christian based” for a public-school setting.

REICHARD: Word got out and eventually Colton Dixon himself got wind of it through a video on social media. So he also posted about it himself:

DIXON: So whoever the student was, first of all, thanks for choosing my song. I think that is us…What an honor. You know, I wanted to be tagged in the video. But apparently the school came back and said that they couldn't do it because it was too overtly Christian and that not everyone believed in God. We actually have the freedom and the right to do this, to worship freely… Kudos to you guys.

Parents stepped up and called a nonprofit law firm that defends religious liberty, First Liberty institute. In this case, all it took was a letter to the school to change things. The students sang their songs. Happy ending.

MAST: Of course, not all defenders of religious liberty find such an easy resolution. Take Jocelyn Boden of Utah. She was a store manager for Bath and Body Works for more than three years. In March, she hired a person who soon informed Boden she was transgender and wanted to go by a different name. Boden didn’t have a problem with that part, as she told her lawyers:

BODEN: I didn't mind calling this new associate by her preferred nickname. I just — in my own personal beliefs — did not agree with falsifying my speech or being coerced to speak in a way that went against my religious and moral convictions by calling her ‘him.’

When Boden said she couldn’t use male pronouns for a woman, HR got involved and soon Boden was fired. Her lawyer says the company failed to follow its own discipline policy and went straight to firing her.

REICHARD: I did ask Bath and Body Works for comment on this story, but I didn’t hear back in time.

So for now, this case is in the hands of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—or EEOC. That’s the required first step prior to filing a lawsuit of this sort in federal court.

MAST: First Liberty’s President and Chief Counsel Kelly Shackelford says it’s a strong case, one needed to clarify previous case law:

SHACKELFORD: They put it in writing — that she was fired for using the wrong pronouns. And this is a great test of something that we just won at the Supreme Court a few years ago. I think it's a perfect case, because a lot of times what happens in the workplace is people will not say why they're really doing what they're doing. You know, they'll say, well, they won't say, Well, I don't like the Christians and I'm firing this person. Or I don't like the Jewish guy who has different beliefs than we do on let's say he's Orthodox Jews, and he has a Sabbath on a Friday night to a Saturday night that they don't say those things. A lot of times, they just do it. In this case, they said it.

REICHARD: The case he’s talking about is Groff v DeJoy from 2023. Gerald Groff asked that he not have to work on Sundays for religious reasons. Even though the USPS made accommodations for him at first, eventually that changed and Groff felt he had no choice but to resign. Then he sued for discrimination.

MAST: And he won at the Supreme Court, 9 to 0. That raised the standard for when employers can deny someone a religious accommodation.

SHACKELFORD: And so it mean now, people do have protections in the workplace. Well, here’s the first really major test case. You're hearing about these all over people losing their jobs, not because they're not doing well or they're not doing what they're supposed to do, but because there's some sort of pronoun policy.

So now the EEOC will decide whether to pursue the case on Boden’s behalf, or give her a right-to-sue letter so she can move ahead on her own.

REICHARD: Another case involves free speech along with a criminal charge. Gabriel Olivier is a Christian evangelist who preached in a public park in Brandon, Mississippi.

SHACKELFORD: So the city actually passed a law that you could only go into one little part of the park, which they called the protest area, (laughs) like sharing the gospel is a protest, and, and, and if you go out of it, you get fined. And so well, Gabe went to try to be obedient. He went in the area, but he's like, Oh, I can't talk to anybody. And that's kind of the whole purpose is to be able to share with people. And so he walked out of the free speech area, of the protest area, and they fined him. They issued him a criminal citation.

Olivier went ahead and paid the fine, intending to challenge the law in court. And that’s when things got more complicated. Supreme Court precedent says a person with a criminal conviction cannot challenge it in civil court unless its been reversed or overturned. But that creates a Catch-22 for Olivier. He couldn’t sue before the conviction, nor after it.

SHACKELFORD: It's sort of this anomaly of, you know, of the weird situation that some of the judges are interpreting this Supreme Court case. And so you'd think that would be kind of obvious, that everybody has their right to the day in court, especially free speech in a public park, right?

MAST: So the justices will hear Olivier’s case next term. It’ll be the first major religious speech of this kind in years.

REICHARD: Finally, back west to California. Tarin Swain this past spring attended a Ventura County city council meeting.

Her daughter had been socially transitioned at school, affirming the child’s identity as the opposite sex. Swain wanted to address that with policy arguments to the council.

But she was 84th in a line of 130 people queued up to speak and by the time it was her turn to speak, Swain felt moved to pray:

SWAIN: Hi, I’m Tarin Swain. I’m a mother of six and the Ventura County Public School socially transitioned my daughter without my consent. I’ve come here today to offer nothing but prayer and I want to lift up my Father in heaven. Father, God, I just come to you in Jesus name. (booing)

MAST: The crowd got loud and antagonistic and before she could finish, the mayor cut her off.

MAYOR: (gaveling) Stop the time. I pray that you would raise up the time. Everybody on this, everybody, stop, yep, stop, stop. Shhh. Thank you. We don't do prayer.

REICHARD: Swain kept going. I talked to her on Friday and asked how she found the nerve to keep going:

SWAIN: You messed with my kid and on top of that… I’ve lived a life of disobedience in my life, and I saw where that path led. And so now, when God calls me to do something, I do it. And it really didn't matter what was going on. It was just noise at that moment….

Swain told me when she stood at the podium, she had a vision of darkness behind the council, with angelic beings and Christ present.

SWAIN: And it sounds wild, but it's just this picture I got in my head, and I felt like the Lord was like, I want you to speak as if I'm the only one you're speaking to.

MAST: Swain contacted First Liberty, and its lawyers sent a letter to the city council explaining her First Amendment rights.

She was invited back at the very next city council meeting. This time, she was allowed to say her prayer, despite pushback:

SWAIN: Father God, I just again come to you in Jesus name. Lord, I just pray, Father, that you would Lord, please…

MAN: Audience,Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor. Audience, order. Order that she’s able to pray as long as it is tied to the issue. Correct., City Attorney? The public needs to allow the speaker to complete her comment. Mayor: Please respect the speaker at the podium until their time is up.

SWAIN: Father I just come to you and your son Jesus….

REICHARD: So those are a few religious liberty cases. Some solved with a courageous soul and a well-placed letter, others with a courageous soul willing to wind their way through the system.

Kelly Shackelford thinks the tide is shifting:

SHACKELFORD: So it's just now that we've turned the corner, and you're seeing it both in legal actions and in the public arena, where people realize it is okay to speak the truth. You know the emperor has no clothes. You know, it’s ok to say it now.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

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