Free Republic

In the closely watched Supreme Court case, EEOC v. Abercrombie, the Becket Fund a brief debunking Abercrombie's claim that a Muslim job applicant should have explained during her job interview that she was wearing a headscarf for religious reasons in order to be protected by anti-discrimination laws. "Abercrombie's claim is both an absurd and dangerous precedent for all people of faith seeking employment," said Eric Baxter, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. "Justice may be blind, but that doesn't mean employers can cover their eyes. A job applicant does not have to bring a 'Look at me...

In Timothy Carney's Dec. 9 article, the Washington Examiner senior political columnist makes the case that the conventional wisdom is wrong when it comes to why white Southerners have fled the Democratic Party. It's not because of the GOP's very successful Southern Strategy, which played up the racial fears and prejudices of white Southerners in response to an increasingly empowered black population. For Carney, the South no longer has a white Democrat in the U.S. Senate for two reasons and two reasons alone: the Democratic Party is hostile to guns and God, two things that every Southerner hold dear. Carney...

In his weekly address at the Vatican late last month, Pope Francis issued a remarkable statement that’s sure to come as welcome news to anyone who’s ever lost a beloved pet. According to Francis, the promise of an afterlife applies not only to believers, but to all animals as well."The Holy Scriptures teach us that the realization of this wonderful plan covers all that is around us, and that came out of the thought and the heart of God," Pope Francis said, as quoted by Italian news site Resapubblica. The Pope then went on to say that “heaven is open to all...

In December 1941, Adolf Hitler threw a Christmas Party for his fellow Nazis. It was a lavish affair, in which the Nazi Party's top officials, statesmen, and generals gathered before a massive Christmas tree to feast and exchange presents with hundreds of jackbooted S.S. cadets in attendance. In surviving pictures taken by the Führer's own personal photographer, Hitler appears somewhat dour and maybe a little sad to be at this event, as if he feels out of place despite his importance, and no wonder: What holiday could be less suited to the sentiments of that genocidal, warmongering dictator than...

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a false religion created by and for members of the most rich, catered, defensive, politically-correct, over-protected, over-nurtured, over-fed society the world has ever known, and the fact that it uses the name Jesus and various select Christian buzzwords allows it to be passed off as Christianity.

Lori Windham is at the vanguard of a movement to change how the legal system treats religion. Windham, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, is best known for her role representing the owners of Hobby Lobby in their successful challenge to ObamaCare’s birth control coverage mandate. That case ended June 30 with a divided Supreme Court rejecting the mandate for closely held for-profit corporations in a decision of “startling breadth,” according to one dissenting justice. The win catapulted the Becket Fund and its lawyers into the headlines and put a spotlight on the firm’s cases and approach....

One of the greatest book titles of the twentieth century declares rather simply: Ideas Have Consequences. Theological ideas also have consequences. Good theological ideas have good consequences. Bad ones have bad consequences.It should come as no surprise, then, when we find that The State of Theology survey also reveals bad consequences in American culture and in American Christianity. The survey could have asked any number of questions on ethics. We asked one specific question regarding sex outside of marriage. Is sex outside of marriage a sin?Before we get to the survey results, consider a few other questions we asked. We asked...

LANSING, MI — Michigan’s Republican-led House on Thursday approved a proposed "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," which supporters say is intended to limit government laws that may burden an individual's free exercise of religion. The fast-tracked bill, sponsored by House Speaker Jase Bolger, was introduced last month and advanced out of committee earlier Thursday. It now heads the Senate for consideration. The 59-50 party-line House vote occurred just one day after competing proposals to add gay rights protections to Michigan’s anti-discrimination law stalled in committee due to a dispute over including transgender residents. Bolger, who had indicated he would only support...

Waiting for peace; hoping for joy; anticipating something wonderful. All of creation waits in earnest for the time of salvation. It is this time of year when we think about how the Kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing since the day a voice shouted in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for him!” John the Baptist - the prophet who baptized men in rivers - proclaimed that the long-awaited Messiah was coming to baptize them with fire. He was born for advent—born to tell the news: “The morning light from heaven is about...

AUN-TV has just found out that minutes ago an injunction was filed against President Obama’s Illegal Alien Amnesty program by Freedom Watch on behalf of Sherriff Joe Arpaio. We have reviewed the key points and believe that Freedom Watch (Larry Klayman) has an exceptionally good case as the Obama Administration has set themselves up, due to the reasoning they have presented as to why “discretion” is warranted in this case. Obama has claimed they have to do it because they do not have enough money to process all the illegal aliens. However Congress not only gave Obama all the money...

It turns out you can give thanks for a lot of different folks on the Disney Channel website – but you can’t thank God. I received a Facebook message on Sunday from Julie Anderson, of Angier, North Carolina...... Lilly loves the Disney Channel – and as she was browsing the channel’s website she noticed a question. The Disney Channel wanted to know what she was thankful for. So Lilly typed in her answer. “God, my family, my church and my friends,” the 10-year-old wrote. Lilly pressed the return key and waited for her answer to appear on the website. But...

ERICK ERICKSON FRONT PAGE WRITERS FEATURES E-LETTERS COFFEE & MARKETS GATHERING FRIENDS RedState Gathering Set For Atlanta in 2015! Click here for more information. « BACK | PRINT RS FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR Planned Parenthood becomes a religion By: streiff (Diary) | November 24th, 2014 at 04:00 PM | 14 RESIZE: AAA Share on Facebook 107 175 SHARES abortion clergy One of the most pernicious things the advocates of various deviancies and social pathologies are fond of doing in finding morally corrupt alleged “clergy” and getting them to endorse whatever perversion is in vogue. We’ve seen the homosexual marriage fascists to...

Today I read, with interest, the interview that Gawker did about film with Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan.... It seems the Church of Satan has a list of recommended films on their website—here it is—and the folks at Gawker got interested in why these films are on the list. Which is a reasonable question, given the list includes some expected picks (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Evilspeak, Nosferatu, Rosemary's Baby) and some unexpected ones (everything from All the King's Men to Bladerunnner to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate...

An Oklahoma school district is reportedly walking back plans to begin offering students an elective course on the Bible after facing pressure from a major atheist group. The class, called “The Book: The Bible’s History, Narrative and Impact,” was developed, in part, by Hobby Lobby president Steve Green, and it was set to launch in Mustang Public Schools, Raw Story reported. The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) said on its website Tuesday that the district canceled the class after Hobby Lobby allegedly did not provide the district with the final curriculum for approval and did not “commit to providing legal...

Race hustler and “Reverend” Al Sharton, better known as “CI-7″ (Confidential Informant 7) to the FBI once upon a time, is in trouble again, though you wouldn’t know it by the dearth of mainstream media reportage. Seems the perennial race-baiter has plenty of time to gin up problems and incite violence in Ferguson, Missouri, following a decision by a St. Louis County grand jury that there was not enough evidence to indict police officer Darren Wilson over the Aug. 9 shooting death of Michael Brown, but no time to pay his “fair share” of federal taxes.

Everyone knows my first name. "When I'm walking down the street, people instantly know my relationship to them. And I know they're entrusted to me." A Catholic nun was talking with me about her gratitude for her calling in life. It's not every day, perhaps, that you see a nun walking down the street. Though if you were with me last week, it might have appeared the most natural thing in the world. The scene around me included Sister Antoniana navigating a cart with a slow cooker, a laptop and a large pot of tortellini soup from convent to convent,...

I have spent my life being coached or coaching. I’ve played most of the major sports and some of the more unusual ones as well. I’ve learned that coaches face one major perennial challenge. It is the difficulty of motivating your athletes when pain and fatigue are urging them to quit.I’ve found that there are three basic coaching styles that seek to answer this challenge.The first coaching style asserts that true athletes don’t feel pain. It simply doesn’t exist; it is a figment of the imagination. This is the mind-over-matter rationale. Pain isn’t a challenge; or, it isn’t even to be...

Throughout November, The Huffington Post UK is featuring its Beyond Belief series, chronicling those who've taken on faith to create a force for change."You’re the anti-Christ, you will be destroyed,” screamed an incensed heckler during a speech by Barack Obama in June this year. It was not the first time Obama had heard this very pointed line, nor was he the first President to hear it. Anti-Obama rallies are often decorated with signs or t-shirts carrying overtly religious messages, whether it’s likening him to the Devil, demanding that Christian prayers be returned to schools or suggesting that America has a...

Give me your tired your poor, you huddled masses yearning to breathe free.......wait, wait, just give me everybody who will keep voting Democrat (like LBJ saying something about a plan "to have those n*****s voting Democrat for 200 years") and the stupid American workers will pay dutifully into the treasury for you to take for free. Americans are being ransacked, while the world is laughing. Immigrants who came here through legal means waited patiently and jumped through hoops for nothing, all they had to do was wait for a Presidential Amnesty by Executorial Discretion (that's legal terms for "I Won"...

Based on the numbers of denominations, sects and cults professing adherence to Christianity, it is not really surprising that there are wide margins of difference in how these different groups understand and interpret the Bible. Within Protestantism, there is still much theological debate and confusion around doctrines and principles – especially those not considered central or cardinal to the Christian faith. And even within mainstream church affiliations that hold fast to the central doctrines of Christianity, there is still considerable confusion and disagreement within church laity with regards to the understanding and interpretation of Biblical doctrine.