Free Republic

Marriage and religious freedom will stand or fall together.In recent essays here at Public Discourse, Mark Regnerus argued that same-sex marriage would harm marriage for everyone, and John Smoot argued that it would be bad for children in particular. Today I want to show the damage that redefining marriage does to religious freedom. At bottom, even the defense of religious liberty is a struggle over what is true and false about the meaning of marriage. Should the truth about marriage—that it unites men and women so that children will have fathers and mothers—be defied by the laws of the land,...

A Midwestern lawmaker is calling on his colleagues in Congress to offer cover to an Army soldier under fire for his conservative political views and religious faith, and accusing the Obama administration of “creating a tyrannical culture of political correctness in the military.” Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., is introducing an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prevent the Army from conducting a court martial of Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers until the military first files a report for Congress to review. “The Secretary of the Army shall provide to Congress a report on activities with respect to Master...

A surprising and public rift opened up last week between President Obama and his lawyers over whether profit-making businesses can pursue goals other than making money, including adhering to religious requirements. In courtrooms across the country—including one last week in Philadelphia—Department of Justice lawyers told judges that profit-making businesses with religious objections to the HHS contraceptive mandate cannot exercise religion. Profit-making business apparently can pursue just one goal: making money. Business owners must check their religious values at the door. Elsewhere in the country, however, President Obama offered the opposite message to a group of men graduating from Morehouse College....

“With all of the people struggling so hard to preserve freedom of religion, and with all that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has said in defense of this important value, Georgetown's choice of the architect of the radical challenge of such freedom for special recognition can only be seen as a statement of where the university stands - certainly not with the Catholic bishops.” Blatty said that the university’s stubborn support for Sebelius was “the last straw” for him. “Commencement speakers generally give advice to graduates on how to live their lives,” Blatty said. “[Georgetown] wants advice on...

Hobby Lobby's case for exemption from a part of the Affordable Care Act that requires religious employers to cover Plan B and Ella One emergency contraceptives that can cause early abortion was argued in court on Thursday. An eight-judge panel (one judge was absent) in the 10th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver, Colo., granted the Oklahoma City-based arts-and-crafts chain a full court hearing, which Hobby Lobby's attorneys' believe is significant because a full-court hearing is rarely granted. "It's a very rare step, because the nine-judge panel hears the most significant cases," said Lori Windham, senior counsel...

Hagel, Brennan, Kerry ... and now Denis McDonough. President Barack Obama plans to name Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough as his next chief of staff, a Democratic source briefed on the plans tells POLITICO. McDonough would replace Jack Lew, the communist Obama nominated to be his new Treasury secretary. Denis McDonough, Deputy National Security Advisor and a former senior fellow at the uber far left Center for American Progress, is the man most responsible for orchestrating the Benghazi jihad cover-up. McDonough rewrote the CIA talking points on Benghazi, misrepresenting the video, when the true motive behind the terrorist attack...

Dear Comrades, The Vanguard of the Socialist Democratic Party of the USSA, better known as Militant Atheists, are courageously fighting for the rights of workers and peasants in the American military to be liberated from the oppressive presence of religion in the Armed Services. Under direction from the White Fortress, officers are learning the Socialist principle of eliminating all public religious expression in keeping with the doctrines of Marxist-Obamism. Officers in the military know that their chances of advancement hinge on their ability to suppress religious expression, especially the worst kind: proselytizing and openly discussing religion as a believer. To...

Washington D.C., May 7, 2013 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- An Illinois-based Bible publisher has secured temporary relief from the federal contraception mandate after the Obama administration asked an appellate court to dismiss its challenge to a preliminary injunction. Matthew Bowman, senior legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending the publisher, told CNA that the move indicates “that the government knows it is taking an extremist view against religious freedom, and it is afraid to defend that in court.” As a result of the court order, the Bible publisher will remain protected by a temporary injunction, and will therefore...

Clearly, the world isn’t as pro-gay marriage as Australia’s establishment media. With only 14 of the world’s 195 nation states allowing same-sex partners to marry, your average “gay marriage” state belongs to an experimental minority. We’re talking eccentric social-engineering islands. Together, they make up the seven per cent. So your average gay-marriage state looks like…? In short, the sociological answer is…very white. Such nations tend to be relatively small, overwhelmingly Caucasian, and frighteningly bureaucratic. Think, legalistic Belgium for a good example. Nevertheless, media elites boast that gay-marriage nations are “ahead of history,” implying that white-majority nations are morally superior, even...

The Pentagon has released a statement confirming that soldiers could be prosecuted for promoting their faith: "Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense...Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis...”. The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court-martial procedures to punish Christians in the military who express or share their faith. (From our earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians--including chaplains--sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military...

Catholic students at George Washington University are rallying to the support of their beloved priest after two gay seniors launched a campaign to kick him out of his post at the university’s Newman Center for preaching that homosexuality and abortion are sinful. The GW Hatchet, a campus newspaper, reported this week that seniors Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen are spearheading the campaign. The story has since been picked up by numerous other news outlets. Fr. Greg Shaffer The students say that they will file a formal complaint with the university, release a video featuring ten other students who share their...

Last week, I gave 12 examples of how religious liberty has been assaulted in just the past two years in the U.S. Here are about two dozen more instances just for good measure, as reported by the Family Research Council, the office of Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., and various media outlets. --The following public institutions recently have joined the growing ranks of those that have banned the use of the word "Easter" in order to diminish or eliminate references to religion: East Meadow School District in New York, Prospect Heights Public Library in Illinois, Heritage Elementary School in Alabama,...

Hobby Lobby. Courtesy of the Becket Fund. Washington D.C., Apr 1, 2013 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Christian-owned craft giant Hobby Lobby will be able to make its appeal against the federal contraception mandate before a full federal panel of nine judges, rather than the usual three. “Full court review is reserved only for the most serious legal questions,� explained Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in a press release on March 29. The Becket Fund is representing the owners of Hobby Lobby in court.  Duncan said that the decision to grant a full...

The Gay marriage plot is not hard to see. It goes as follows: First: legalize Gay “marriage” next: use tax law to force churches to commit Gay “marriages” with an either or choice: finally: close those that refuse to commit Gay “marriages.” The forced choice will be Gay “marriage” or lose tax exempt status. The real target of all of this is the Catholic Church. For all of her faults the Catholic Church has steadfastly refused to change her position against same gender marriage. The elevation of Pope Francis has done nothing to make anyone think this position will be...

With that said and meant, this shift is altogether unsurprising. The new mark of being culturally acceptable is affirming homosexuality as virtuous (not merely okay, but virtuous, even exemplary). This is the litmus test. I don’t think many of us expected that it would so quickly fill this role, but it has. The mark of being a progressive, kind, socially courageous person today is simply this: affirming same-sex marriage. There are other cardinal virtues of a contemporary au courant identity, but this is the lodestar, the one that hangs one’s personal moon. This shows us that the cultural middle is...

For people of faith in America, the Obama administration's birth control mandate represents an unprecedented assault on religious conscience. It seems that the President and his surrogates have little appreciation for the role that faith plays in the lives of many Americans, and even less respect for the Constitution's protection of religious liberty. As if to confirm this impression, the U.S. Justice Department is doubling down on the Administration's anti-faith stance with a lawsuit against a German family seeking religious asylum in the United States. According to our esteemed Attorney General, the right to choose the best education for your...

Teri James is a deceiver. She pretended to be a faithful Christian when she applied for a job with San Diego Christian College, but proved to be an interloper. The 29-year-old knowingly and willingly signed the school’s “community covenant.” In so doing, she foreswore “abusive anger, malice, jealousy, lust, sexually immoral behavior including premarital sex, adultery, pornography and homosexuality, evil desires and prejudice based on race, sex or socioeconomic status.” Last October, James was summoned to her supervisor’s office. She acknowledged that she had broken the covenant by engaging in promiscuous sex – with a co-worker, no less – which...

Christian registrars will not be able to opt out of performing gay marriages if they object on grounds of belief, the Government’s human rights watchdog has said.In guidance to MPs, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said marriage registrars were public officials and so should expect to be “required” to carry out the ceremonies. The document makes clear that employees, including teachers and chaplains working in the public sector, should be free to express their views on marriage without being disciplined. But it says that religious protection is “a qualified right” which “the state can interfere with” in some...

Egypt's Coptic Christian population has often had a difficult relationship with the country's Muslim majority, and human rights groups estimate that several thousand Copts may have left the country since the 2011 revolution. Video at link.

ObamaCare: Faced with a string of court losses to those defending the First Amendment and religious liberty, HHS reworded its contraceptive mandate. But those who were fooled once won’t be fooled again. While liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, on these pages, and others have declared the new Health and Human Services regulations forcing religious institutions to violate their consciences as some sort of victory for the Catholic Church, any more such victories will surely mean the end of religious liberty in this country. Certainly the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops does not accept what HHS calls an "accommodation" as...

More than 1000 priests have signed a letter voicing concerns about how same-sex marriage will threaten religious freedoms and may even lead to Catholics being excluded from jobs.In the letter, which is one of the biggest open letters of its type ever written, the priests claim that same-sex marriage could threaten freedoms in a way that was last seen during centuries of persecution of Catholics in England.The letter, signed by 1054 priests as well as 13 bishops, abbots and other senior Catholic figures, expresses fears that the simple acts of practising or speaking about their faith will be severely limited.They...

An Annapolis company whose old-fashioned trolleys are iconic in the city's wedding scene has abandoned the nuptial industry rather than serve same-sex couples. The owner of Discover Annapolis Tours said he decided to walk away from $50,000 in annual revenue instead of compromising his Christian convictions when same-sex marriages become legal in Maryland in less than a week. And he has urged prospective clients to lobby state lawmakers for a religious exemption for wedding vendors. While most wedding businesses across the country embraced the chance to serve same-sex couples, a small minority has struggled to balance religious beliefs against business...

A British think tank has released a lengthy report claiming that militant Islam is the greatest existential threat to Middle Eastern Christianity, bringing Christian communities in the region "close to extinction." The London-based Civitas, also known as the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, published the report in December. "Christianity is in serious danger of being wiped out in its biblical heartlands because of Islamic oppression," reads a statement from the group issued Sunday. "But Western politicians and media largely ignore the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the wider world because they are afraid they...

First Amendment: A federal appeals court has reinstated lawsuits from two religious colleges against the HHS contraception mandate, saying promises to rework it aren't enough. Can a group of nuns helping the poor be protected? On Tuesday, a chink in ObamaCare's armor developed as a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., reinstated lawsuits by Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College that had been dismissed by lower courts on the grounds the two schools had not yet suffered or demonstrated real harm by a law not yet fully implemented. The lower courts ruled the schools had to wait until the oncoming...

The government of Quebec is forcing Catholic schools to replace the Christian religion with the state’s “neutral” alternative based on moral relativism. That’s how defenders of religious freedom have responded to last week’s court ruling that a private Catholic high school must teach the state’s “secular” Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) course. Barbara Kay slammed the judges’ decision in the National Post on Wednesday, arguing that it empowers a government to “compel a faith community to jettison its driving beliefs in order to promote the state’s secular religion of multiculturalism; or indeed, in the future, to compel promotion of any...

Conestoga Wood Specialties president and CEO Anthony Hahn. Photo via catholicnewsagency.com Three Mennonite Christians who own a wood manufacturing company in Pennsylvania have filed a lawsuit challenging the federal contraception mandate for threatening their right to religious freedom, reports Catholic News Agency. “Being told that we must provide a health plan that includes a provision that violates the Christian beliefs of our family and the Christian values that our company was founded on is deeply troubling,” said Anthony Hahn, president and CEO of Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation. “Forcing Americans to surrender long-standing, deeply-held principles in order to own and run...

A top federal appeals court signaled Friday that it might act on Obamacare’s HHS Mandate—requiring employers to cover birth control and abortion-related services. After repeated assurances that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would not mandate abortion or people of faith violating their religious beliefs, ...Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) saying that a vague provision in the ACA requiring employers provide “preventive care” means that employer healthcare policies must cover birth control, abortion-related, and sterilization services. A torrent of lawsuits have flooded the federal courts, with people of faith arguing...

SEATTLE, December 13, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Regardless of the state marriage referendum, Catholic Churches in the Archdiocese of Seattle may not participate in any same-sex “marriage” or recognize them in any way – including solemnizing such unions, allowing their facilities to conduct the ceremony or its reception, or providing marital counseling to homosexual couples. Following Washington state’s legalization of same-sex “marriage,” and marijuana, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain has issued a “policy refresher” to explain how the new laws will affect Catholic parishes in his archdiocese. The archbishop wrote that he was “disappointed that so many voters failed to recognize marriage...

Student religious groups should not have to appoint leaders who do not share their beliefs, a student judiciary at Tufts University announced on Wednesday (Dec. 5). It was a big victory for a Christian group on campus that had lost official recognition in October. Like several other private colleges, Tufts has an "all comers" policy that requires official student organizations to be open to all students for both membership and leadership, regardless of beliefs. But in reviewing a discrimination complaint filed against Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF), the largest evangelical group on the Medford, Mass., campus, the Tufts Committee on Student...

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda operatives slaughtered nearly 3,000 Americans in an operation that marked the second major attack by violent jihadists against the World Trade Center. There wasn’t much mystery about who had carried out these atrocities — unless you were Salam al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Marayati warned Americans not to conclude that the suicide hijacking attacks were the work of Muslim terrorists. “If we are going to look at suspects,” he told a Los Angeles radio station, “we should look at groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I...

A decision by the Supreme Court this morning opens up a potential new avenue of attack against ObamaCare on the grounds of religious liberty — and not just the HHS contraception mandate. The court overturned the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Liberty University over the health-system overhaul, in a move that was not opposed by the Obama administration in court: The Supreme Court has revived a Christian college’s challenge to President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul, with the acquiescence of the Obama administration.The court on Monday ordered the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., to consider the claim by Liberty...

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò SOUTH BEND, Indiana, Nov. 23, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pope Benedict’s emissary to the United States warned earlier this month that Catholic professors and public officials who rebel from Church teaching on key issues such as abortion and marriage represent a “grave” threat to religious liberty. “We have witnessed that some instructors who claim the moniker ‘Catholic’ are often the sources of teachings that conflict with, rather than explain and defend, Catholic teachings in the important public policy issues of the day,” said Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. “This, my brothers and sisters, is a grave and major...

By TIM TALLEY Associated Press OKLAHOMA CITY November 20, 2012 (AP) A federal judge Monday rejected a request by Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. to block part of the new federal health care law that requires it to provide the morning-after and week-after birth control pills. In a 28-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton denied a request by Hobby Lobby to prevent the government from enforcing portions of the health care law that will require it to include contraceptives the company considers objectionable in its health insurance plan. The Oklahoma City-based arts and craft supply company and a sister...

CHICAGO, November 7, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) –  President Obama’s re-election sets up a looming clash with people of faith over abortion, marriage, and the implementation of government-controlled health care –a fight the pro-life movement has vowed to carry out by defying the president, reforming an increasingly unfriendly Republican Party, and building a culture of life that transcends the boundaries of politics. A second Obama term means “the collision course of the Obama administration with the Catholic Church…is assured,” said Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life after the election. He was outraged by the fact that a majority of his fellow...

When I was the director of undergraduate medical education for OB/GYN at a Midwestern university (a state school), it came to my attention that a medical student was refusing to have anything to do with contraception as it was against her religion.So I spoke with her. I explained that over the course of her career she would undoubtedly see people from all walks of life with a myriad of religious and or personal practices. I explained that medical care is not about fulfilling any personal need beyond the need to help.I gave the example of a doctor who is a...

Next week, Florida voters will decide on whether to remove language in the Florida State Constitution that bars religious or sectarian institutions from receiving state money. Currently religious organizations are able to use state money for charitable purposes but are barred from using it to spread religious messages.The ballot measure, termed a “religious freedom” amendment by the state legislature, has caused concern among public educators because of fears could open the door for a voucher system that would allow public money to go to religious schools.  The Florida Supreme Court overturned school vouchers in 2006 but the amendment could open...

Adam Gopnik is a gifted essayist and writer whose contributions, often published in The New Yorker, are almost always thoughtful and interesting. Nevertheless, one of his most recent writings is deeply disturbing, and at the deepest level. Reflecting on the debate between Vice President Joseph Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan, Gopnik registered alarm at “something genuinely disturbing and scary” that had been said by Paul Ryan. Gopnik first complained that Biden and Ryan should not have even been asked about the role their Roman Catholic faith plays in their thinking, specifically on the issue of abortion. Gopnik then wrote: “Paul...

The Obama administration is claiming that a dedicated Christian publisher of Bibles and ministry material is insufficiently religious to qualify for an exemption to the contraception mandate in the president’s health-care overhaul. According to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in the District of Columbia by Tyndale House Publishers, the company has been refused a “religious employer” exemption because the Health and Human Services Department categorically maintains that any for-profit publisher is not a “religious employer.” The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Tyndale, called the rule an unconstitutional and arbitrary threat to religious freedom.

BAMAKO, Mali — Isolated for centuries by the harsh desert that surrounds it, Timbuktu now finds itself even more cut off from the rest of the world. Rebels who captured the city in northern Mali in April have imposed a form of hard-edged Islamic rule, prompting many residents to flee in fear and changing the face of what had been a tolerant and easygoing destination that drew tourists from around the world. Women are now forced to wear full, face-covering veils. Music is banned from the radio. Cigarettes are snatched from the mouths of pedestrians. And the look of the...

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill requiring foster parents and other care givers to undergo training in "cultural competency and sensitivity" regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. The bill by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has been controversial, with some conservative activists saying it will discourage adults from volunteering as foster parents.

Yesterday marked the opening of the international conference announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a high-level meeting on Islamophobia that she co-chaired, held last July in Istanbul and hosted by the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). At the time, Secretary Clinton described this week’s conference as a move to implement U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 on “combating [religious] intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization.” This State Department conference, entitled “The Istanbul Process,” is proving to be a very bad idea. It remains to be seen whether speech limitations to protect religion generally and Islam specifically will be...

Not gonna happen.Via Arab News: The KingdomÂ’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh called on the international community to criminalize acts of abusing great prophets and messengers such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them all), according to a statement issued today.The statement was issued in response film in the United States denigrating Islam and ridiculing the Prophet (pbuh).Al-Asheikh also appealed to the Ummah to react to any attempt to denigrate Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) by strictly adhering to the values advocated by the Prophet (pbuh) instead of unleashing violence against innocent people, the Saudi Press Agency reported.The...

No, I am not talking about the impending economic doom that some are predicting will impact both continents. I am talking about the complicit support given to Muslim countries in the UN who have been on a rampage to make it an international crime to criticize Islam in any way, shape or form. In December 2011, the United States hosted what is known as the “Istanbul Process Conference” in Washington, DC. This Conference is explicitly committed to a global ban on any verbal or written criticism of any aspect of Islamic Sharia—even if it is an honest assessment. After all,...

The Democrats still have a religion problem. No, not that religion problem. They just can’t seem to get past wanting the blessing of a larger-than-life religious figure — even when that figure has called their policies “un-American” and depicts their core beliefs as antithetical to our most cherished freedoms.The circumstances leading up to Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s benediction last night were politically fraught, but they didn’t have to be. First, Mitt Romney announced Dolan would be giving the closing benediction at the Republican National Convention. (At the time, I wrote that the move signaled Dolan had chosen sides with the GOP....

Democrats were not too happy that Timothy Cardinal Dolan admonished them about respecting human life and religious liberty during his closing benediction at the Democratic National Convention. On Twitter, hundreds of liberals vented their frustration with the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Below are a handful of the samples of F-bombs liberals dropped on the Catholic cardinal during and after his benediction. “Grant us the courage to defend life…waiting to be born, welcomed & protected,” he said, excoriating Democrats to support religious liberty as well in light of the controversial Obama HHS mandate that Catholics and pro-life...

Convention: Having yanked religious liberty and Israel from the platform, the boos greeting their reinstatement showed the true colors of a Democratic party and president hostile to both. In politics there are no do-overs. The pathetic sight of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the convention chairman, repeatedly calling for a voice vote amid a chorus of boos on a motion to restore deleted references to God and Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, was certainly, as they say, bad optics. The party of "Yes, We Can" said "No, We Won't" to defending a faithful ally and adhering to the national...

Eugene Volokh has been doing extensive blogging on the Volokh Conspiracy Blog about Elane Photography v. Willock That is where I heard about this case of a Photographer being forced by the government to take pictures of an private event that violates the photographer's beliefs. This case is about a photographer in New Mexico who did not want to take pictures of a gay marriage wedding because it violated their beliefs. This gay couple could have went anywhere else but they decide to go to court to force this photographer to take their money and take pictures for them at...

A CATHOLIC bishop has sparked controversy by suggesting that, if the Scottish Government truly believed in equality, it could extend legislation on same-sex marriage to encompass bigamy and even incest. Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen asked why equality did not extend to "nieces who genuinely, truly love their uncles" and why men could not have two wives, adding such scenarios were not freaks of nature but might in fact occur in Scottish parishes. ... In an interview with the Scottish Catholic Observer (SCO), Bishop Gilbert, the first to be appointed in Scotland by Pope Benedict, said: "You can't have a...

God save us! A cabal of Catholic bishops is politicizing the faith! Or so I’m told by a few loud and bitter groups from the Catholic Left. To hear their angry denunciations of bishops with a “right-wing political agenda” who invent the “fiction” that religious liberty is endangered, you’d think these folks had never sullied their hands in politics or lifted a finger to assist any politician’s agenda. So, who are these pure souls, these naïfs scandalized by “politicized” religion?

It appears many are surprised that liberal politicians are looking for ways to ban the restaurant chain “Chick fil A” from opening their businesses as a result of the CEO Dan Cathy’s personal stance on traditional marriage. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Boston Mayor Tom Menino, and now San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee have already said that Chick fil A was not welcomed in their cities. However, this is not the first time such an instance has happened to a private business owner, professional, or private property owner since the legalization of same sex marriage. In June of 2008 National Public...