Ohio

Joanne Brown and her friend, Linda Bennett, said they were doing their Christmas shopping last year when they noticed many people saying "Happy Holidays" to them instead of "Merry Christmas."

"Tired of hearing that greeting," they decided to do something about it, they told Fox News. The two brainstormed and finally decided to purchase a billboard as a way to spread the Christmas greeting.

The idea caught on and donations poured in, allowing the duo to post a total of four billboards last year. more >>

A high volume of complaints have forced the Cincinnati Zoo to pull out of a special business partnership with the Creation Museum in nearby Petersburg, Ky., after running for less than three days.

The two institutions had come together to offer a special ticket package that gave visitors the opportunity to drop in on both at a discounted rate while promoting one another at the same time.

According to the Creation Museum’s founder, Ken Ham, however, the zoo received hundreds of complaints, many of which were opposed to the faith and ideas that the museum presents. more >>

The newly elected president of the American Civil Liberties Union says the organization plans to reach out to communities where it is not well-known or not well-understood.

"There's a very widespread misimpression that the ACLU opposes religion" despite its efforts to protect rights to religious expression, ACLU president-elect Susan Herman told The Associated Press after she was tapped Saturday to replace Nadine Strossen, the ACLU's longest-serving president.

In particular, the Brooklyn Law School professor said she was surprised "there aren't more people in the African-American community that believe the ACLU is their organization." more >>

A group of clergy filed a complaint Monday with the Internal Revenue Service to block a conservative legal group from organizing pastors willing to risk their church’s tax-exempt status to preach about politics.

The group, backed by three former top IRS officials, contends that pastors should respect the 54-year-old rule of law that bans tax-exempt houses of worship from endorsing political candidates. They call on the IRS to examine if organizer Alliance Defense Fund has violated its own tax-exempt status by encouraging pastors to make political endorsements from their pulpit.

"As religious leaders, we have grave concerns about the ethical implications of soliciting and organizing churches to violate core principles of our society," the 55 Christian and Jewish leaders wrote in their claim, according to The Washington Post. more >>

Young religious voters could be the determining factor in several swing states in this November election, a prominent political science with expertise in religion and politics said.

In the swing states of Ohio, Missouri and Colorado, religious young voters have the potential to give the win to either Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama or Republican rival John McCain, said John C. Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron in Ohio, according to Fox News.

“These ‘battleground states’ are good reflections of the nation as a whole,” Green, who is also senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, explained. “The youth vote - both religious and non-religious - are likely to show the same patterns at the national level. If they [religious youth] can have an impact nationally, they will have an impact in the battleground states.” more >>

The decision of an Ohio middle school to fire a popular, Christian science teacher of over 20 years has generated protest, outcry, and divisions among the residents of Mount Vernon over concerns that the decision may have been motivated out of religious bias against Christians.

At the heart of the debate are concerns about the decision by the Mount Vernon School district to unanimously dismiss instructor John Freshwater because of reports that he had preached his Christian beliefs and had burned the image of a cross on the arms of students.

Freshwater, however, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and asserts that the accusations stem largely from an incident back in April when he clashed with school officials over the right to keep a Bible on display at his desk. more >>