Church State

A religious freedom legal team has launched a Memorial Day campaign that includes the release of the music video, "Don't Tear Me Down." The video's release coincides with an effort to combat opposition to the use of the Christian cross and other symbols of faith at U.S. veterans' memorials.

"The ACLU is so driven to purge religious displays from the public square that they are continuing their attack against the unlikeliest of victims – the veterans and the memorials they built to honor their own," said Liberty Institute President and CEO Kelly Shackelford. "We believe, if the Supreme Court grants our appeal and agrees to hear the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial Cross case, they will rule once and for all that these veterans memorials should be exempt from the ongoing culture war over religious imagery in public displays."

The ACLU filed suit in 2006 on behalf of Jewish War Veterans of the USA and some residents of San Diego against the Mt. Soledad cross display, which was erected in the 1950s. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in 2011 that the cross was unconstitutional. Liberty Institute appealed in 2012 and the U.S. Solicitor General joined the appeal in defense of the 29-foot memorial cross. more >>

E. J. Dionne, a liberal columnist for The Washington Post, suggested in a Monday blog post that Catholic leaders who are opposing the Obama administration's birth control mandate could be doing so to help Republicans in the November elections.

Dionne was responding to the Monday lawsuits from 43 Catholic agencies. They sued the Obama administration over the requirement to provide coverage for contraception, sterilization and some abortifacient drugs in their health plans. These agencies did not qualify for the religious exemption because the exemption defines religious groups as only those that primarily hire and serve coreligionists, and for which religious worship or instruction is not their primary function.

The U.S. Catholic Church will also focus on religious freedom issues for an event called "Fortnight for Freedom," to be held for two weeks this summer. more >>

The U.S. Catholic Church will hold an event this summer called "Fortnight for Freedom" to bring attention to religious freedom issues. The Christian Post has learned that discussions are underway to include evangelical organizations with these events. Evangelical organizations have expressed solidarity with Catholic leaders who oppose the Obama administration's birth control mandate, which, they argue, is a religious freedom issue.

In separate interviews, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokesperson for the USCCB, and Galen Carey, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), both confirmed that discussions have taken place on how evangelicals might coordinate events with Catholics for "Fortnight for Freedom," but nothing has been finalized.

The Catholic bishops "have invited us to join them," Carey said Tuesday. "There have been discussions, we're not exactly sure what form that might take, but we certainly have expressed our solidarity with Catholics on [the religious freedom] issue." more >>

WASHINGTON – A former director of the State Department's Office of Religious Freedom believes misunderstandings regarding religious liberty in America have made it hard to advance religious liberty abroad.

"The United States is required by law to advance religious freedom in its foreign policy. It has been required to do that since 1998," said Dr. Thomas F. Farr, referring to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. "By and large we have done very poorly and there are many reasons for that. One of them is we are so confused about the meaning and reach of religious liberty."

Farr, who was among many speakers at the 2012 National Religious Freedom Conference on Thursday, feels that over the past half-century a series of court decisions have distorted the concept of religious liberty that the United States was founded on. more >>

A national atheist activist group says an Indiana church's plans to use tax exempt bond financing to help construct a campus for its ministries is a violation of the state's constitution and the separation of church and state clause in the Constitution.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation says the city of West Lafayette cannot legally subsidize Faith Church's "Faith West Project" with $7 million in economic development revenue bonds. FFRF's co-president Dan Barker sent a letter of complaint to Mayor John Dennis and the City Council.

In a video posted on Faith Church's website, the church's pastor Steve Viars said that asking whether it is appropriate for government to allow a tax exempt bond to be issued for a non-profit religious organization like Faith is a "very reasonable question." However, the tax exempt bond financing is done for all types of organizations, including religious ones. more >>

The narrow religious exemption for the Obama administration's birth control mandate is "strangling," and the administration fails to understand the "horror" Catholics feel over the exemption, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said Tuesday on "CBS This Morning."

Dolan said he has spoken directly with President Obama regarding his concerns over the narrowness of the religious exemption, but added that he believes the Obama administration still doesn't get it.

"I worry that members of [Obama's] administration might not particularly understand our horror at the restricted nature of the exemption that they're giving us, that for the first time we can remember, a bureau of the federal government seems to be radically intruding on what the term of a church is," said Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and archbishop of New York. more >>