WASHINGTON — A new White House report that offers guidance on public/private partnerships between the government and faith-based groups leaves critical questions unanswered and does not resolve the issue of religious groups’ ability to discriminate in hiring and firing, church-state watchdogs said. The 50-page report, issued Friday (April 28), comes 18 months after President Obama…
The nation’s Catholic bishops are calling on the faithful to pray and mobilize in a “great national campaign” to confront what they see as a series of threats to religious freedom, and they are setting aside the two weeks before July 4 for their “Fortnight for Freedom” initiative. The exhortation is contained in a 12-page…
From the perspective of the nation’s professional prison chaplains, America’s state penitentiaries are a bustle of religious activity. More than seven-in-ten (73%) state prison chaplains say that efforts by inmates to proselytize or convert other inmates are either very common (31%) or somewhat common (43%). About three-quarters of the chaplains say that a lot (26%)…
A proposal to ban the use of foreign law in Virginia was on its way to passing the House of Delegates, despite objections from religious groups that it was a back-door attack on Islam that could also harm followers of other faiths. One bill, HB825 from Republican Del. Bob Marshall of Prince William County, would…
July 22, 2011 France’s highest administrative court handed down a final ruling on five cases involving the public use of funds for religious purposes. In June 2007 an administrative court blocked 380,000 Euros the city of Le Mans wanted to use to set up a Muslim slaughterhouse. The court ruled that the space was…
