On Oct. 28, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided the case of what the court called “self-described Christian evangelists preaching hate and denigration to a crowd of Muslims, some of whom responded with threats of violence.”
Joe Kennedy, who coaches football at Bremerton High School in Washington State, has been suspended for offering a personal prayer after a Friday night football game.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee is investigating what it calls a “global crisis” of religious freedom, and the resulting challenge to U.S. Foreign Policy.
The woman reportedly screamed for mercy while being raped, but no one came to her assistance. Relatives of the woman have retained the services of Christian lawyer Sardar Mushtaq Gill, who runs an advocacy group offering free legal assistance to Pakistani Christians and other minorities who are victims of abuse and religious persecution.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is answering the recently released State Department report on the status of religious liberty worldwide.
The Islamic authorities of Singkil in the Aceh province of Indonesia began the demolition of ten Christian churches deemed illegal under Sharia law because of a lack of the proper “building permits.”
In its newly released International Religious Freedom Report for 2014, the U.S. State Department has once again failed to place Pakistan on the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC), despite its status as one of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world.
China once again has its hackles up over a U.S. report criticizing the country’s violations of religious freedom, and is insisting that America stop interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of defending religious liberty.
In introducing the 2014 Report on International Religious Freedom, Secretary of State John Kerry said his department was fighting “to protect people’s right to exercise religious freedom.”
More than 1,400 cases of blasphemy were registered in Pakistan in 2014, marking a new record for the prosecution of religious crimes in the country amidst growing protests of abuse and arbitrary arrests of Christians and other religious minorities.
The Archbishop of Aleppo has called on the West to act to save Syria from the “fundamentalist, jihadist mercenaries” who threaten his country, “killing anyone who would speak of freedom, citizenship, religious freedom and democracy.”
The group of religious sisters founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta is shutting down its thirty orphanages in India as a protest, rather than comply with new state regulations requiring that they place children with single parents. It’s a religious liberty case eerily familiar to Americans.
In the lead-up to a major summit on religion, the Chinese Communist party is preparing intensified restrictions on Christian churches, according to the Party’s official newspaper on religious issues, Zhongguo Mingzu Bao.
In the coming days, construction will commence on a new church in Egypt dedicated to the martyred Coptic Christians beheaded by the Islamic State in Libya in February.
The ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit against the Concord Community Schools for using a live Nativity scene in their annual Christmas concert.
Saddique Azam, a Catholic teacher who was recently appointed principal of a primary school in a small village of Pakistan, was severely beaten and tortured by three Islamist extremist teachers who said they refused to work under a Christian.
The Air Force confirms to Breitbart News that Lt. Col. Liz Valenzuela, a gay active duty officer at the center of a controversial case of religious liberty in the military, did not receive approval from her superiors prior to making public comments to Slate Magazine last month critical of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), as well as her former commander, Col. Deborah Liddick, and a retired non-commissioned officer formerly under her command, Master Sergeant Phillip Monk.
With Wednesday’s expiration of the Congressional mandate for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the American Catholic bishops have formally petitioned Congress to reinstate it.
To many observers, it may seem strange that the Vatican would choose to keep a secret of what has been called “the most significant meeting” of the Pope’s entire trip to the United States: his 15-minute encounter with Kentucky County Clerk,
Pope Francis says that he had wanted to remind U.S. leaders “that the greatest wealth of the country and its people are its spiritual and ethical heritage,” built on the founding principle “that all men are created equal by God and endowed with inalienable rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Davis was jailed after the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was legal—something many conservatives have argued was an act of “judicial tyranny,” as Huckabee says. Huckabee and other conservatives have been fighting to ensure that people like Davis—those with religious objections to gay marriage in government and outside of government—aren’t forced to violate their religious beliefs to comply with that decision, which they view as unjust.
When asked about religious liberty aboard the papal plane during his return trip from the United States to Rome, Francis said that “conscientious objection is a right” and “if someone does not allow others to object on the basis of conscience, he denies a right.”
Pope Francis is reminding Americans of the centrality of religious liberty in their lives. During an address in the evocative venue of Philadelphia’s Independence Park, the pontiff called the park “symbolic of the American way.”
Many conservatives viewed the prospect of the Pope’s visit to the United States with a mixture of hope and trepidation: hope, because the Pope’s visit would force heavy media coverage of religious issues; trepidation, because of Pope Francis’ mixed record on issues ranging from climate change to illegal immigration.
Pope Francis says “religious freedom and, more generally, spiritual freedom” are “pillars of integral human development,” his most recent in a chain of appeals for religious liberty during his U.S. visit.
