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Freedom of Religion Tag

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 16, 2016 6 Comments
Friday, President Obama issued a proclamation declaring today Religious Freedom Day. In 1992, a Joint Resolution from Congress requested then President George H.W. Bush to designate January 16 as Religious Freedom Day:
"Be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That January 16, 1993, is designated as “Religious Freedom Day,” and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to join together to celebrate their religious freedom and to observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 04, 2015 5 Comments
The city of Houston is no longer threatening to seize two decades-old fifth ward churches via eminent domain. From our August report:
Two churches nestled in what used to be one of Houston’s roughest neighborhoods are fighting back against the city. The Latter Day Deliverance Revival Center was established in the fifth ward in 1965 by Bishop Roy Lee Kossie. A few years later, Pastor Quinton Smith began pastoring at the Christian Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, also in the fifth ward. Both churches have grown and have had a positive impact on their community in each year since their establishment. Building a youth ministry center, a church-run food bank, and creating outreach programs for gang members, drug addicts, and alcoholics, the churches continue their work to transform the fifth ward. “When we moved in to this area, it was considered the highest crime rate area in the city of Houston. People shot first and asked questions later. But we loved these people. We loved this community. We knew this was exactly where we needed to be,” said Kossie. The fifth ward is located just outside of downtown. Property values in the area have skyrocketed and continue to climb. The City of Houston offered to purchase the churches. When the churches refused, the city came back with threats of using eminent domain to acquire the property as part of an urban development plan.
That "urban development plan" called for using the land to build a library and 63 units of public housing.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 24, 2015 12 Comments
Gallup released an interesting poll this week showing that nearly half of all Americans view government as "an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens."  Interestingly, this is "similar to what was found in previous surveys conducted over the last five years"; however, "when this question was first asked in 2003, less than a third of Americans held this attitude." Gallup reports:
The latest results are from Gallup's Sept. 9-13 Governance poll. The lower percentage of Americans agreeing in 2003 that the federal government posed an immediate threat likely reflected the more positive attitudes about government evident after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The percentage gradually increased to 44% by 2006, and then reached the 46% to 49% range in four surveys conducted since 2010. The remarkable finding about these attitudes is how much they reflect apparent antipathy toward the party controlling the White House, rather than being a purely fundamental or fixed philosophical attitude about government.
It's no accident, for example, that when Democrats start and/or renew pushes for gun control, gun and ammo sales skyrocket. Of course, this isn't just about gun control; it encompasses everything from government surveillance to over-regulation to fundamental First Amendment rights.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 05, 2015 31 Comments
Today's edition of Why local governments can be the absolute worst takes place in my home breaks. If you haven't had your coffee yet, this story is enough to get your blood pumping. Two churches nestled in what used to be one of Houston's roughest neighborhoods are fighting back against the city. The Latter Day Deliverance Revival Center was established in the fifth ward in 1965 by Bishop Roy Lee Kossie. A few years later, Pastor Quinton Smith began pastoring at the Christian Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, also in the fifth ward. Both churches have grown and have had a positive impact on their community in each year since their establishment. Building a youth ministry center, a church-run food bank, and creating outreach programs for gang members, drug addicts, and alcoholics, the churches continue their work to transform the fifth ward. “When we moved in to this area, it was considered the highest crime rate area in the city of Houston. People shot first and asked questions later. But we loved these people. We loved this community. We knew this was exactly where we needed to be,” said Kossie.

Posted by Amy Miller on July 14, 2015 9 Comments
Since the Supreme Court handed down its landmark Hobby Lobby decision last year, lawyers and activists on both sides of the Obamacare contraception mandate have been trying to outmaneuver each other on the technicalities of exemptions. Four appeals courts have ruled in favor of the government mandate, but until this week, one case served as both a holdout for religious freedom, and a thorn in the Obama Administration's side. The Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Roman Catholic nuns, were granted a temporary exemption from the mandate by the Supreme Court last year. They then went before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in an attempt to extend that protection, but were denied. Today, the 10th Circuit upheld that ruling, saying that compliance requirements “do not substantially burden plaintiffs’ religious exercise or violate the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.” Now, the Little Sisters are faced with either complying with the mandate, or paying massive IRS penalties. Via The Hill:
Under the contraceptive mandate, nonprofit religious groups like Little Sisters of the Poor are permitted to opt out of the requirement if they report their concerns to their insurance companies or the federal government. But that group and others have objected to any extra steps to obtain the exemption. Instead, they are seeking the same treatment as houses of worship, which are not required to fill out additional paperwork in order to avoid fines under the law.

Posted by New Neo on June 30, 2015 71 Comments
If you had asked me twenty years ago to predict what the 21st century would hold in store, “religious wars” probably wouldn’t have been tops on my list. But it should have been. Right now we're seeing many forms of religious war. The most obvious has raged between radical Islam and everybody else. Yes, radical Muslims are somewhat of a minority within Islam; but they’re a huge, activist, vocal, sometimes violent, determined, and ruthless minority, they’ve been fighting the fight for the better part of a century (centuries, that is,) and have really stepped it up since their victory in Iran in 1979. During Obama's time in office their threat has grown in numbers, in strength, and in barbarity. I wrote that it’s a war “between radical Islam and everybody else.” The war against the Jews has been going on for a long time, with Israel/Palestine as the epicenter (that war isn’t just a religious one, but it certainly is a religious one as well as a political one). The war against the Hindus also is of great antiquity. The ancient war against Christians took somewhat of a breather in Western Europe after the Siege of Vienna. In recent years, however, radical Islam’s revived war against Christians has reached a violent fever pitch.

Posted by Amy Miller on May 30, 2015 5 Comments
They came. They saw. They protested without hurting themselves or others. I promised a round of applause for Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton if he and his city management and law enforcement teams managed to keep the peace between protesters and counterprotesters at last night's free speech/anti-Islam/whatever you want to call it rally. The verdict? They managed! Mr. Stanton, this one's for you. USA Today explains how things played out:
Police presence increased by 6:30 p.m. to physically separate the two sides outside the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix. About 20 cars and 15 motorcycles traveled from a protester meeting point at a nearby park to the mosque around 6 p.m., where people from the two sides used megaphones to yell at each other and were at times nose-to-nose. A large group of counter protesters held signs reading "Love not Hate," as others waved American flags and one man ripped the Quran in half. Counter protesters wearing blue lined the side closest to the mosque. They said they came from Redemption Church in Tempe and wore the color to be a peaceful presence. Few people showed up for the mosque's scheduled prayer service.
Supporters on both sides of the issue took to Twitter to speak their minds---and air their grievances:

Posted by Amy Miller on May 29, 2015 18 Comments
Tonight, activists plan to protest outside of the Phoenix mosque frequented by the Islamic extremists responsible for shootings at a free speech rally in Garland, Texas. Obviously, a controversy. Local law enforcement officials aren't taking any chances with this one; organizers for this protest have been less...filtered?...than those responsible for Garland's "draw the Prophet" event, and city officials are preparing for the possibility of violence.
The protest is timed to coincide with jummah, a large communal Muslim prayer service held on Fridays. Protest organizer Jon Ritzheimer told CNN his goal is to expose Islam. "True Islam is terrorism," he told the network's Anderson Cooper. "The ones that are out committing these atrocities and stuff, they're following the [Quran] as it's written." ABC News reported Friday the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned local law enforcement there is a possibility of violence, though no specific nor credible threat. The Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said it has met with law enforcement in an effort to protect mosque-goers.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 17, 2015 5 Comments
President George W. Bush gave the commencement speech at Southern Methodist University this weekend. His speech was humorous at times but drew a major amount of applause when Bush touched on the subject of religious liberty. David McCabe of The Hill:
George W. Bush defends religious liberty Former President George W. Bush offered a defense of religious liberty and faith more broadly while speaking at Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) commencement ceremony Saturday. He spent some of his speech talking about why graduates should be hopeful as they move on from their college years. Towards the end, he offered one more. “And finally, you can be hopeful because there is a loving god,” he said. “Whether you agree with that statement is your choice, it is not your government’s choice.” “It is essential to this nation’s future that we remember that the freedom to worship who we want, and how we want — or not to worship at all — is a core belief of our founding.”
This video has that segment of the speech:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 12, 2015 58 Comments
Pew just released a survey of religion in America, and the headline is Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population:
The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an extensive new survey by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic groups. While the drop in Christian affiliation is particularly pronounced among young adults, it is occurring among Americans of all ages. The same trends are seen among whites, blacks and Latinos; among both college graduates and adults with only a high school education; and among women as well as men.
The complete Report is here (pdf.). The percentage of Christians has declined by 8 percent sice 2007:
To be sure, the United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to identify with some branch of the Christian faith. But the major new survey of more than 35,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center finds that the percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in an equally massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014....

Posted by Amy Miller on April 22, 2015 29 Comments
Living in America, it's very easy to forget that just a plane ride away, people are persecuted on the basis of their religious beliefs. I say "persecuted" like that covers the atrocities that occur on a daily basis, but it really doesn't; feminists, gay rights activists, and race hustlers all claim "persecution," but if that's the word we're going to use to describe what happens to people like the Coptic Christians of Egypt, we may want to stop throwing it around when arguing about the wage gap. Recently, the world sat dumbfounded as news surfaced that a group of Muslims threw a dozen Christians overboard a migrant ship traveling from Libya to Italy. Outrage bubbled as Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi insisted during a joint press conference with the President that "the problem [was] not a problem of (a) clash of religions," and boiled over as Obama stood by and said nothing. Would he have spoken up if the victims had been Muslim? Kirsten Powers thinks so. In an op-ed for USA Today, Powers lashed out at Obama, and pointed out that his silence about the mass murder at sea isn't a one-off problem.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 03, 2015 22 Comments
Scott Walker was interviewed by Charlie Sykes about the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act protests. Walker defended the law, stated that Wisconsin had a similar provision embodied in its Constitution, and that the outrage was sparkd by those “chronically looking for ways to be upset about things,” BuzzFeed reported:
Walker said the outrage for the law was coming from people who hadn’t really looked at what the law really is and were just looking for a reason to be upset. “I just think this is people who are chronically looking for ways to be upset about things instead of really looking what it is. I believe in protecting religious freedoms. It’s inherent in our state’s constitution. Heck, it’s inherent in our U.S. Constitution, and again, Wisconsin, we’ve done it, and we’re stronger for it.” Asked about what would happen to a baker who did wanting to provide services to a same-sex wedding in the state, Walker didn’t address the scenario, but said Wisconsin’s law strikes “a healthy balance.” “Again, if you look at the constitution there is both a combination of religious freedoms protecting the constitution and back in the ’80s, long, long ago when I was still a kid, there were also provisions there that would protect against discrimination including a gay or lesbian individual out there,” he said. “So there is a healthy balance of someone can’t be discriminated, say, in the workplace and that — but for someone who has a conscientious objection, based on their religious

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 03, 2015 64 Comments
Ann Coulter appeared on the O'Reilly Factor last night and addressed the story of the Indiana pizza place which was forced to shut down because of threats. She pointed out that the left has adopted a regular cycle of outrage which usually turns out to be false. She also urged Republicans and conservative Christians to stand up to bullies. Watch the video:

Posted by Amy Miller on April 02, 2015 49 Comments
Yesterday, we told you about a small Indiana pizza joint that has been forced to close down after its proprietors committed the unpardonable sin of coming forward in support of Indiana's new RFRA law. An irresponsible "news hit" led to a landslide of boycott threats, liberal thinkpieces, and threats against the lives and livelihoods of Memories Pizza's proprietors. I'm going to walk back a word I used just now---what happened here goes beyond a "boycott." Nobody involved in what has been done to Memories Pizza is "taking a stand"---unless, of course, this is what "taking a stand" looks like: memories pizza arson tweet Twitter is full of nutcases, but here's the problem---no one in the local media took a stand against this.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 02, 2015 81 Comments
A family owned pizza shop in Indiana closed its doors until further notice yesterday after death and firebombing threats, as well as hacking. The PJ Tatler provides a stunning account of how what happened:

Story About First Business to ‘Publicly Vow to Reject Gay Weddings’ Was Fabricated Out of Nothing

The Huffington Post headline screams: Indiana’s Memories Pizza Reportedly Becomes First Business To Reject Catering Gay Weddings Memories Pizza is a nine-year-old shop in downtown Walkerton, Indiana, just a few blocks from John Glenn High School. It’s owned by an openly-Christian couple, the O’Connors, who decorate their shop with mementos of their faith in Christ. So how does a small business in a small town wind up making headlines around the world as the new avatar of Christian bigotry?

Posted by Amy Miller on February 25, 2015 26 Comments
Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that pits the concept of religious accommodation against company dress codes and hiring practices. Just writing it out makes it sound depressing, doesn't it? The facts don't make things much better. Back in 2008, Samantha Elauf, an observant Muslim, applied and was interviewed for a job at teen-friendly retailer Abercrombie & Fitch. She impressed the hiring manager, but when the time came to make a decision, the manager decided not to hire Samantha because she had concerns about whether or not Samantha would insist on wearing her headscarf to work. This would have been a violation of Abercrombie's "Look Policy," which dictates that employees conform to a strict set of style guidelines that specifically prohibit head coverings and black clothing. After Samantha failed to get the job, a friend of hers already employed with the retailer asked the hiring manager for her reasons, and the manager indicated that the headscarf played a part in her decision. Welcome to the Supreme Court, Abercrombie. Enjoy your stay. The EEOC sued on Elauf's behalf on grounds of religious discrimination, and down came a $20,000 award in favor of her case. The 10th circuit overturned the decision, saying that because Elauf never asked for an accommodation, the company wasn't liable for not offering one; the Court was uncomfortable holding employers to a standard that would require them to ask about a religious exemption they may not know an employee needs.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on October 31, 2014 10 Comments
After significant national pressure, Houston Mayor Annise Parker has withdrawn the controversial subpoenas entirely. Ed Whelen at National Review has the scoop:

I’m pleased to pass along word from the Alliance Defending Freedom, counsel for five Houston pastors, that Houston mayor Annise Parker has—finally—entirely withdrawn the harassing subpoenas that the City unjustifiably inflicted on the pastors.

I’ll repeat what I said in my first post on this matter: The law firm of Susman Godfrey, which is representing the City “pro bono” in the litigation, deserves to share in the ample blame for this fiasco. In particular, Geoffrey L. Harrison, Alex Kaplan, and Kristen Schlemmer of that law firm seem not to have given a moment of careful thought to the First Amendment implications in this case of the sort of bullying discovery that they and other lawyers routinely engage in. 

The Alliance Defending Freedom issued the following statement:

“The mayor really had no choice but to withdraw these subpoenas, which should never have been served in the first place. The entire nation--voices from every point of the spectrum left to right--recognize the city's action as a gross abuse of power. We are gratified that the First Amendment rights of the pastors have triumphed over government overreach and intimidation. The First Amendment protects the right of pastors to be free from government intimidation and coercion of this sort. But the subpoenas were only one element of this disgraceful episode. The scandal began with another abuse of power when the city of Houston arbitrarily threw out the valid signatures of thousands of voters. The city did this all because it is bent on pushing through its deeply unpopular ordinance at any cost.
The subpoena threat has been withdrawn but the mayor and the city should now do the right thing and allow the people of the Houston to decide whether to repeal the ordinance.”

Following a bitter battle over an overreaching city ordinance, Bayou City clergy and the city of Houston weren't on the best of terms. The ordinance, dubbed "HERO," allows transgendered persons to sue businesses that prohibit their use of their preferred bathroom.

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