Bank of America Updates Code of Conduct to Prevent Debanking

Religious Freedom, ,

Last week news outlets reported Bank of America is updating its code of conduct to prevent debanking.

The news comes in the wake of Trump Administration executive order “guaranteeing fair banking for all Americans.”

Since 2021, congressional testimony and news stories have highlighted how federal officials and financial institutions targeted conservative organizations through “reputational risk” policies. Conservatives deemed “high risk” could have their bank accounts closed without warning and without explanation.

Corporate shareholders, state attorneys general, congressmen, federal investigators, and news outlets all have expressed concerns over conservatives being wrongly labeled as “high risk” or “hate groups” and subsequently debanked.

Since then, JPMorgan Chase has taken steps to prevent religiously-motivated debanking. Now Bank of America is finally doing the same.

In a statement, our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom wrote,

“No American should ever fear that their bank will cancel them or deny them service because of their religious beliefs or political views. Bank of America has taken an important step forward in protecting against future discrimination against its customers. Over the past two years, ADF and our partners in both the private and public sectors have repeatedly engaged with Bank of America’s leadership to advocate for this change—one that is particularly crucial given Bank of America’s disturbing track record of debanking religious clients like U.S.-based Indigenous Advance Ministries, one of its supporting churches, and Timothy Two Project International. Bank of America is taking steps in the right direction to protect its customers from discrimination, but it has a long way to go to rebuild trust in the marketplace. We look forward to more banks following in the steps of JPMorgan Chase, and now Bank of America, as they come into compliance with President Trump’s recent executive order.”

We have written repeatedly about allegations that major financial institutions have deliberately debanked conservative individuals and organizations.

In 2021 Family Council’s credit card processor abruptly cancelled our account after designating our organization as “high risk.” Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. Other organizations have had similar experiences as well.

It’s good to see federal regulators and financial institutions finally taking steps to stop debanking. After all, banks that are too big to fail are too big to discriminate.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Atheist Groups Renew Legal Fight Against Arkansas Ten Commandments Monument

Ten Commandments Monument, ,
Above: Former Sen. Jason Rapert and then-Rep. Kim Hammer unveil Arkansas’ monument commemorating the Ten Commandments in this file photo from 2018. Atheist organizations filed a lawsuit to have the monument removed, but the case has remained in limbo for seven years.

Last Friday, a group of atheist organizations filed a new motion in federal court to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the Arkansas Capitol lawn.

In 2015, the Arkansas Legislature authorized a privately funded monument of the Ten Commandments on the Arkansas Capitol Building grounds. The monument is identical to one the U.S. Supreme Court ruled constitutional at the capitol building in Texas.

It was unveiled in 2018, but atheist groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Satanic Temple quickly filed a federal lawsuit to have the monument removed. The case has been in legal limbo ever since.

Earlier this year the Arkansas Legislature passed a separate law, Act 573 of 2025 by Sen. Jim Dotson (R — Bentonville) and Rep. Alyssa Brown (R — Heber Springs), authorizing privately funded Ten Commandments posters to be displayed in public schools and other public buildings in Arkansas. The measure received strong support in the Arkansas Legislature, but lawyers from the ACLU and a group of atheist organizations filed a federal lawsuit against four public school districts to block Act 573. On August 4, U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks partially blocked a state law placing copies of the Ten Commandments in Arkansas’ public schools.

The new motion against Arkansas’ Ten Commandments monument argues that the court ruling against the Ten Commandments posters in four Arkansas schools means U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker should rule against Arkansas’ Ten Commandments monument on the capitol grounds.

The new motion claims,

This Court should grant summary judgment for the Cave Plaintiffs, invalidate the Ten Commandments Monument Display Act as violating the Establishment Clause, and order that the Ten Commandments Monument located on the Arkansas State Capitol grounds be permanently removed.

The truth is Arkansas’ monument of the Ten Commandments is identical to one the U.S. Supreme Court ruled constitutional at the Texas Capitol Building in 2005.

As we have said many times, there shouldn’t be anything controversial about a monument honoring the significance of the Ten Commandments.

Historians have long recognized the Ten Commandments as one of the earliest examples of the rule of law in human history, and they have helped shape philosophy and laws in countries around the world.

That’s why the Ten Commandments traditionally have appeared in artwork at courthouses and other public buildings.

Arkansas’ laws commemorating the Ten Commandments honor their historical and cultural legacy. With that in mind, we believe our federal courts eventually will resolve these lawsuits and uphold Arkansas’ Ten Commandments laws as constitutional.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Will the U.S. Supreme Court Revisit Same-Sex Marriage?

Marriage, ,

News outlets report the U.S. Supreme Court may review the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that overturned state marriage laws and instituted same-sex marriage nationwide.

Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis — who has been taken to court for declining to issue same-sex marriage licenses — is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. She is also challenging the essence of the Obergefell ruling.

ABC News reports:

She [Kim Davis] claims the high court’s decision in Obergefell — extending marriage rights for same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment’s due process protections — was “egregiously wrong.”

“The mistake must be corrected,” wrote Davis’ attorney Mathew Staver in the petition. He calls Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell “legal fiction.”

The petition appears to mark the first time since 2015 that the court has been formally asked to overturn the landmark marriage decision. Davis is seen as one of the only Americans currently with legal standing to bring a challenge to the precedent.

Back in 2015, we said that Obergefell was about a lot more than just same-sex marriage. The bigger question has always been about how marriage will be defined in America and who gets to write that definition. From 2004 to 2015, voters in more than three-fifths of the country democratically passed laws and amendments defining marriage in their respective states. In most cases, those measures defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Voters in three states chose to define marriage differently. The court’s Obergefell decision struck down every one of those state marriage laws.

In 2020, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito made blunt statements that Obergefell has had “ruinous consequences for religious liberty,” saying it lets courts and governments label people who believe in traditional marriage “as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss.”

Support for same-sex marriage has actually declined in recent years. Reversing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision may not seem likely right now, but the same thing seemed true of Roe v. Wade 50 years ago.

The reality is Obergefell was a deeply flawed decision in 2015. It’s still a deeply flawed decision today. And as Justices Thomas and Alito said in 2020, “the Court has created a problem that only it can fix.”

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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