On October 7, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral argument on whether the Arkansas Department of Corrections grooming policy violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons act of 2000 (RLUIPA) when it prohibits a prisoner from growing a one-half-inch beard in accordance with his religious beliefs.
On September 13, during a visit to the Italian Military Memorial of Redipuglia, a monument in Italy where more than 100,000 soldiers who died in World War I are buried, Pope Francis said that World War III has begun in a “piecemeal” fashion.
A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals last week unanimously struck down state bans on same-sex marriage in Indiana and Wisconsin. In a 40-page opinion (http://www.scribd.com/doc/238675754/14-2386-212#download), Judge Richard Posner blasted the two states for arguing that the reason why gay marriages were prohibited while heterosexual marriages were encouraged was that heterosexuals needed marriage to make couples take responsibility for their unplanned children. The states had argued that since homosexual couples could not accidentally conceive children, the state had no interest in them being married.
On September 10, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument in Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) v. Lew. The judges focused on whether FFRF had standing to bring the case.
By Doug Bandow – Today China’s big cities look much like urban areas anywhere in the world. There are lots of cars. What I didn’t expect was to see a Christian “fish” on an auto.
Religion is “on the rise,” one U.S. diplomat told me.
It also is under attack by the Chinese government. As I wrote in the American Spectator online: “When it comes to religious liberty in the People’s Republic of China, there’s the (surprisingly frequent) good, (not so constant) bad, and (still too often) ugly.”
A Tatarstan court had to reject the prosecutor’s suit to have a further 18 books by or about the Turkish Islamic theologian Said Nursi declared “extremist” as police had already burned them. According to a police letter seen by Forum 18 News Service, police claim not to have received a court decision ordering their return to the owner, Nakiya Sharifullina, who had controversially been convicted for “extremist” activity. “We still cry when we remember the burned books,” a local Muslim told Forum 18, adding that they “asked God that these people repent for their actions, since in these books were verses of the Holy Koran”. Four further Nursi titles, plus more Jehovah’s Witness publications, have been declared “extremist” and banned. Websites or pages that host religious materials controversially banned as “extremist” have similarly been banned and added to Russia’s Register of Banned Sites.
Is a second Hobby Lobby case in the works? Meggan Sommerville is a sixteen-year Hobby Lobby employee in Aurora, Illinois who has been denied access to the store’s restroom because she is transgendered. Sommerville underwent legal gender transition in 2010 but has not yet had gender-reassignment surgery.
On August 9, 2014, Dr. Eric Walsh presented the closing address at the Adventist Services and Industries convention at the DeVos Place Convention Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan entitled “Facing Fire.”
July 28, 2014 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | ANN staff [dc]S[/dc]eventh-day Adventist leaders said they applauded the announcement of a nominee for a religious freedom advocacy position at the U.S. Department of State, a post that has been vacant since October. The White House today announced that Rabbi David Nathan Saperstein would be…
By Ryan Bell – In the United States, the claim that Christians are being persecuted is unsubstantiated. Of course there are cases of intolerance. Christians in predominantly secular contexts, like public universities and large cities like New York and Los Angeles, do experience discrimination, but it hardly rises to the level of what could be credibly called persecution.