On August 23, 2010, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that World Vision is a religious organization and is therefore exempt from Title VII prohibitions on religious discrimination. Three  former employees Silvia Spencer, Ted Youngberg, and Vicki Hulse had had filed suit against the well-known humanitarian organization in 2007, [...]

As a country that has long prided itself on representing a superior national enterprise, we must learn from our past. We have not yet taken unconscionable measures against our Muslim citizens and must avoid doing so at all costs. As our history indicates, our Constitutional values may well be at [...]

By Christopher Hitchens Read the full article here: http://www.slate.com/id/2263334 EXCERPTS: The dispute over the construction of an Islamic center at “Ground Zero” in Lower Manhattan has now sunk to a level of stupidity that really does shame the memory and the victims of that terrible day in September 2001. One [...]

State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2010reports that the rise of religious nationalism, the economic marginalization of religious minorities and the abuse of counter-terrorism laws have all led to a growing pattern of persecution against religious minorities globally.

A Christian Nation: But Which Christianity? from Jeff Huett on Vimeo. Mercer University President William D. Underwood delivers the keynote address at the 2010 Religious Liberty Council Luncheon in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Read more at BJCOnline.org)

In short, Judge Walker ruled based on the evidence presented, as any trial judge should, and regardless of his own personal sexual orientation or biases, Prop 8 supporters simply did not make a viable case for themselves. Sloganeering may have won the election but did not win a trial where real evidence was required. Prop 8 supporters may later look at the ruling and claim it was wrongly decided but as this essay points out, the reality is that they did a poor job presenting their evidence and only put two witnesses on the stand, both of whom had previously written statements that contradicted their testimony in favor of Prop 8. When both of these witnesses were neutralized, Prop 8 advocates had nothing left with which to prove their case and any effort by any judge to add in facts to uphold Prop 8 would have been the very definition of judicial activism.

Delivered August 3, 2010 at Governors Island in New York. “We’ve come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that more [...]