Reading Time: 3 minutes What do reproductive rights, marriage equality, and gender-affirming care have in common? We know that they are freedoms that conservatives are trying to strip from everyone, but there is one crucial thread tying them all together. They are all under threat because of a group pushing for Christian supremacy to advance their own interests: Christian […]
religious freedom
Posted inLaw
Judge: HIV drug mandate violates religious freedom of anti-gay Christians
Reading Time: 5 minutes A Texas judge ruled this morning that free coverage of PrEP drugs to prevent HIV infection, as required by the Affordable Care Act, is unconstitutional because it violates the religious freedom of Christian-owned companies. If the ruling is upheld, it would be another victory for religious business owners who claim their faith requires them to […]
Posted inFilm/TV
‘Scientology, The Aftermath’: A reminder that ‘religious freedom’ can be dangerous
Reading Time: 7 minutes After I recently finished watching the Emmy-winning 2016-2019 A&E docuseries, “Leah Remini: Scientology and The Aftermath,” I was further convinced of how supremely dangerous the concept of “religious freedom” can be as practiced in America, as I stressed in my 2018 book, Holy Smoke: How Christianity Smothered the True American Dream. And expensive. Remini’s series […]
Posted inPolitics
A new Republican lie: Biden’s State Dept. wants to ‘promote atheism worldwide’
Reading Time: 5 minutes Today, in a letter addressed to President Joe Biden and the State Department, 15 Congress members on the “Republican Study Committee” claimed the U.S. government is using taxpayer dollars to “promote atheism worldwide.” If that sounds bizarre to you, you’d be right, because that’s not even close to what’s actually happening. Here’s the backstory: In […]
Posted inReproductive rights
Florida’s 15-week abortion ban violates Jewish religious freedom, says lawsuit
Reading Time: 3 minutes Knowing that conservative judges care less and less about respecting precedent, while repeatedly allowing sincerely held religious beliefs to override common sense, a Jewish group in Florida has filed a lawsuit (you can read it here) challenging the state’s new 15-week abortion ban, set to go into effect on July 1. The law offers no […]
Posted inPolitics
Conservatives’ devotion to ancient texts assures extra abortions, gun murders
Reading Time: 4 minutes American conservatives have a problem with documents, specifically the Bible and the U.S. Constitution. It’s an interpretive problem because conservatives believe those docs are sacred or sacrosanct, which neither is (due to the fact that a god doesn’t appear to exist to sanctify them). And because these documents are mischaracterized by conservatives as “holy” in […]
Posted inLaw
Louisiana Court drops charges against pastor who ignored COVID restrictions
Reading Time: 3 minutes Pastor Tony Spell, the head of Louisiana’s Life Tabernacle Church, has finally received the legal victory he’s been clamoring for. The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled 5-2 yesterday that COVID restrictions instituted by the state’s governor in March of 2020 were unconstitutionally applied to Spell, who repeatedly violated it to hold church services in the name […]
Posted inPolitics
Christian nationalism in 2022: An interview with Katherine Stewart
Reading Time: 9 minutes Religious freedom advocate Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, has been writing about politics, policy, education, and church-state relations for over a decade. The Power Worshippers won first place in the Excellence in Nonfiction Books category from the Religion News Association as well as the Morris D. […]
Posted inUncategorized
James Madison gave Americans religious liberty. Happy birthday, Jim!
Reading Time: 5 minutes Americans can thank James Madison for their religious freedom — and for keeping faith out of government, although evangelicals keep trying to put it in.
Posted inReligion
Can religion (mostly Christianity) be banned from U.S. government?
Reading Time: 5 minutes When the Trump era ends, hopefully very, very soon, we should start talking immediately about how to get religion out of our government.