Welcome to the Napa Legal Podcast, where we discuss religious liberty from the perspective of faith-based nonprofits.

In this episode, we discuss:

[1:05] A new lawsuit against the Lake Washington School District in Washington State. Frank explains why this case is one of the first real tests of Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Supreme Court decision holding that parents are constitutionally entitled to notice and an opt-out when a curricular feature substantially interferes with the religious development of a child, and why the fight over whether a lesson is merely descriptive or actually normative is the wrong place for courts to draw the line.

[12:40] The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty's amicus brief in Grand v. City of University Heights, which the Supreme Court will hear this December. Kyle walks through Becket's argument that importing the finality rule from Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank, a Fifth Amendment takings case, into religious land use litigation hands local governments a playbook for postponing federal review indefinitely, and Becket's comparison of religious claimants trapped in zoning proceedings to the souls in Dante's Purgatory, only without the assurance of a happy ending.

[32:28] New Jersey's newly signed law expanding abortion access, which criminalizes interference with abortion and shields providers from losing their medical licenses or their malpractice insurance for performing what the statute calls reproductive health care. Frank and Kyle look at the New Jersey Catholic Conference's guidance on how Catholics should continue praying and offering literature outside abortion facilities.

The Napa Legal Podcast, September 15, 2026

#freedomofreligion #religiousliberty #freeexercise

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