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Freedom of Religion Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 06, 2017 10 Comments
President Donald Trump's administration has decided to roll back a portion of Obamacare that mandates a private company must include birth control coverage in health insurance plans. From The Washington Examiner:
The new rules allow any employer to be exempt from the mandate "based on its sincerely held religious beliefs" or on "moral convictions." Employers who decide not to provide coverage do not need to inform the federal government but would need to tell their employees about their decision.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 11, 2017 18 Comments
One of the many things that has long puzzled me about the leftist agenda is its long-standing, mulit-pronged attack on Judeo-Christianity.  On the one hand, I understand that the left has a reason for wishing to undermine religion.  After all, as assorted totalitarians, fascists, and communists well know, a populace permitted to believe in and publicly worship a power higher than government is anathema to totalitarian central control. Challenging and wiping out all religious references makes perfect sense if your goal is the total subjugation of a people under the all-powerful arm of a government that claims it will provide for all of its citizens' earthly needs.  What has puzzled me is that much of the left's base is Christian and/or Catholic.  I've been waiting at least ten years for the left to grasp this simple fact.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on August 09, 2017 10 Comments
Thousands of North Koreans are fleeing the Communist prison state thanks to an underground Christian network spread across China, reports the British newspaper Daily Express. The 3000-mile long network, run by South Korean and Chinese Christians, also dubbed as the ‘underground railroad’, helps dissidents from the north to escape to freedom into Thailand. Many of these escapees later find a new home in South Korea.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 13, 2017 13 Comments
I have written often, and recently, about the corrosive effect of the Southern Poverty Law Center's highly-politicized "hate" and "extremist" lists. Politico also recently focused on the problem, which I described in Southern Poverty Law Center “extremist” lists used “to silence speech and speakers”, including this quote from the Politico article:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 26, 2017 7 Comments
Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Missouri Lutheran School who'd sued the state over the state's decision to withhold grant money. PBS summarized:
The case grows out of a lawsuit filed by Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Missouri, after it lost out on a grant for its playground in 2012 despite being ranked fifth out of 44 applicants.

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 15, 2017 5 Comments
On February 20, the Iranian regime arrested a Catholic mother and son as it continues to crack down on the faith. Unfortunately, there is no update on the two of them. Anousheh Rezabakhsh and Soheil Zargarzadeh converted to Catholicism in Istanbul, Turkey in August 2016. It just goes to show that Christians still have to practice their faith in secret in the Islamic country.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on November 08, 2016 3 Comments
Summit Crosses have adorned hill tops and mountain peaks in the Alps since the dawn of Christianity in the West. Roman legionaries are said of have brought Christianity to the Alpine region as early as second century of Christian era. In recent months, these religious and historic symbols are targets of vandalism in this mountainous region that runs between Germany and Austria. Since August, five such crosses have been severely vandalised or destroyed, Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports. Islamist have recently carried out several acts of vandalism against Christian statues and symbols across Germany. In 2014, police in Cologne apprehended a gang of Islamists responsible for desecrating number of churches, stealing Christian artefacts and sending the proceeds to Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 12, 2016 2 Comments

The debate over our founding fathers' religious beliefs is centuries old. Though we are a nation intentionally founded on Judeo-Christian principles, the anti-religion crowd loves to paint the men that created our great nation as beings of The Enlightenment, forgetting (intentionally or ignorantly) their deeply-rooted...

Posted by Miriam Elman on July 13, 2016 10 Comments
On Tuesday morning July 12, 2016, the family of Hallel Yaffa Ariel, the 13-year-old Israeli girl who was brutally stabbed to death on June 30th as she lay asleep in her bed, was granted special permission to visit the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—the most sacred site in Judaism. Hallel’s anguished parents, Rina and Amihai Ariel, had reportedly requested permission to ‘pray for the ascent of Hallel’s soul’ at the holy place that was dear to her and their hearts. [caption id="attachment_177363" align="alignnone" width="550"]Credit: The Times of Israel Credit: The Times of Israel[/caption] Rina Ariel had written directly to PM Netanyahu asking him to personally intercede. Via a YouTube video that went viral over the last few days, they also invited their fellow Israeli citizens to join them in the special prayer service:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 27, 2016 34 Comments
Heaven forbid atheists show any tolerance for people of faith or that nasty, three-letter-word, "God". The Freedom From Religion Foundation is raising a stink over a highway road sign that has been a staple of Hondo, Texas since the 1930's. Why? Because the sign refers to Hondo as "God's Country".

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on May 31, 2016 5 Comments
The Southeast Asian country of Malaysia is moving towards a total imposition of Islamic Sharia. Malaysia's government has pledged its support for an Islamic penal code that seeks to impose Sharia-prescribed punishments such as amputations, public stoning and flogging on its multi-religious population. The new legislation referred to as “Hudud Law” also seeks to segregate women from public life in Kelantan province, a predominantly Muslim northern state. The proposed constitutional amendment will allow other Malaysian provinces to align their legal system to stricter Islamic law as well. With a population of around 30 million, only 61 percent of the people identify as Muslim. Apart from Christianity that makes up to 10 percent of the population, Malaysia is home to many ethnic Chinese and Indians who mainly follow Buddhism and Hinduism respectively.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on May 10, 2016 4 Comments
For many Christians fleeing the nightmare of religious persecution in Arab and Muslim lands their torment and suffering doesn’t end when they arrive on the shores of Europe since Islamist bullies single them out for harassment. A detailed study released by the Christian group Open Doors on Monday says that newly arrived Christian refugees in Germany are facing systematic violence, harassment and abuse at the hands of Muslim migrants. The most disturbing part of the study is the abuse faced by Christians at the hands of Muslim guards inside the German refugee housing. In many refugee housing centres most of the migrants and the security guards are Muslim. The Christian group talked about the prevailing atmosphere of “fear and panic” among the persecuted Christians arriving in Germany. According to a Christian minister from Berlin, Christian refugees must take part in Islamic prayer and threatened if they refused to comply.

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on April 16, 2016 38 Comments
In what some might be the next standoff over religious liberty, a high school near Madison, Wisconsin is at odds with an off-campus student lunch group over the right to hold free, Jesus-themed lunches. Fox News explains:
[Middleton] high school allows students to eat lunch off-campus. In 2014 a small group of parents began meeting with their children in a nearby park — providing home cooked meals along with a Christian-themed, inspirational message. The small weekly gatherings in the fall and spring eventually morphed into a popular gathering spot for hungry kids — with nearly 500 turning out for all sorts of goodies — ranging from Chick-fil-A sandwiches and fresh fruit to hundreds of homemade brownies. “We show up every week just to show the love of Jesus,” parent Beth Williams told me. “Our mission statement for Jesus Lunch is ‘food for the body, nutrition for the soul.’”
As students started inviting more friends to attend, the gatherings have brought as many as 400 hundred students to the lunches, which are held at a park directly next to the school campus.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 15, 2016 27 Comments
Bad news for Pastafarians. A federal court in Nebraska ruled Flying Spaghetti Monster is not actually a god. Stephen Cavanaugh, prisoner of the Nebraska State Penitentiary sued prison officials because, "their refusal to accommodate his religious requests." His request to have Pastafarianism recognized as his official religion was smacked down by a U.S. District Court who wrote, "The FSM Gospel is plainly a work of satire, meant to entertain while making a pointed political statement. To read it as religious doctrine would be little different from grounding a ‘religious exercise’ on any other work of fiction.” According to Religion News:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 11, 2016 25 Comments
Is it an epidemic? Yet another decades-old rockstar miraculously found a feigned moral superiority soapbox. Canadian rocker Brian Adams, most famous for his early 90s hits, has decided Mississippi's religious freedom laws are too draconian for his liking. ABC News reported:
Canadian rocker Bryan Adams is canceling a performance this week in Mississippi, citing the state's new law that allows religious groups and some private businesses to refuse service to gay couples. Adams said in a statement Sunday night that he was canceling a show Thursday at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi. The singer says he can't "in good conscience" perform in a state where "certain people are being denied their civil rights due to their sexual orientation."

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 23, 2016 33 Comments
Walt Disney and Marvel, a Disney subsidiary, are threatening to boycott Georgia if Governor Nathan Deal signs into law a religious freedom bill that recently passed the Georgia state legislature. The bill, HB 575, had already undergone significant revisions in response to pressure from SJWs.  The bill was initially designed to protect businesses and non-profits whose owners had religious objections to providing services for and participating in gay "marriages"; however, the new version is less accommodating to religious freedom. The Washington Times reports:
The bill initially would have allowed Georgians to decline service for same-sex weddings if doing so violated their religious beliefs. But, sensing the coming storm, Mr. Deal urged lawmakers to make substantial changes to the legislation before passing it.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 05, 2016 19 Comments
In case you missed it, the National Prayer Breakfast was earlier this week and our esteemed president used the occasion to lecture people on religious liberty. FOX 6 reported:
Pres. Obama at National Prayer Breakfast: ‘Faith is the great cure for fear’ President Barack Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, speaking about the need to overcome fear through faith, just one day after making a historic visit to a Baltimore mosque where he delivered a message of religious inclusivity. “Fear can lead us to lash out against those who are different or lead us to try to get some sinister ‘other’ under control,” said Obama, making a veiled reference to divisive rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail.
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