Do Houses of Worship Have a Right to Enforce Their Own Rules of Modesty?

While attending Sunday services at a Virginia church, Annie Peguero began nursing her daughter and, in keeping with the church’s policy, was promptly asked to do so in a private room. She now plans to take the church to court. Walter Olson explains:

In 2015, following the lead of many other states, Virginia passed a “law that says women have a right to breastfeed anywhere they have a legal right to be,” as the Washington Post reports. The law provides . . . no quarter, it would seem, for owners’ ordinary rights to set terms and conditions when they invite visits from the general public. . . .

Should [the mother] press a claim in court, she might have to contend with Virginia’s version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). . . . But since not all states have a version of the RFRA—and particularly since . . . a large sector of polite opinion is taking Ms. Peguero’s side and appears to see nothing wrong with applying such laws to churches—it seems likely that this will not be the last such claim.

Personally, I’m fine with public breastfeeding no longer being classed as an automatically shocking thing. But why is government dictation of how a church may arrange its worship services no longer classed as an automatically shocking thing?

Read more at Cato

More about: American law, Freedom of Religion, Politics & Current Affairs, Religious Freedom Restoration Act

How Congress Can Finish Off Iran

July 18 2025

With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:

Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.

They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.

Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.

Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days

Read more at National Review

More about: Congress, Iran, U.S. Foreign policy