Religious Rights

This week, the University of Notre Dame made an exciting announcement: President Barack Obama is to deliver the university’s 2009 commencement address and receive an honorary law degree. He joins a long line of previous US presidents who have spoken at one of the nation’s most storied Catholic institutions, one that is considered the alma mater of all Catholics, even for those who attended other universities and those who attended none. President Obama is the sixth US president to give the commencement address at the university and the ninth to be awarded an honorary degree. However, as seniors were calling their parents to tell them the good news, a small group of ultraconservative Catholics saw fit to protest the decision.

It is a little difficult to understand the furor. The reality is that, in many ways, President Obama’s approach to social justice issues very much mirrors that of the Catholic church. He is working towards an end to the war in Iraq. He wants to develop an equitable and affordable national health-care system. He has advocated at length for policies that will reduce the need for abortion. He wants to mitigate the impact of the recession on the poor. Read more...

Americans United for Separation of Church and State couldn’t be happier with yesterday’s Arizona Supreme Court decision striking down two school voucher programs that allowed state funds to support religious schools.

AU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Cain v. Horne case, and we think this decision is an extremely important victory that protects both religious liberty and public education. Read more...

There is no right more fundamental than the right to life. There is no realm in which more exciting progress has been made than that of science. And the two are not inherently opposed to one another.

I am a Christian who believes that life begins at conception and that a human embryo is human life. Therefore, I believe it is morally wrong to create human life to destroy it for research. Not only that, I believe it is morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro-life Americans, who believe that life is sacred, and use it to fund the destruction of human embryos for research. Read more...

This morning, as the pope traveled to Africa, he issued his first explicit statement opposing condom use. In an interview on the papal plane to Cameroon, the pope acknowledged the HIV/AIDS crisis but claimed that the distribution of condoms would not resolve the problem. In fact, he said, condom use "increases the problem."

This is not a new position, but it is worth noting that the Catholic hierarchy’s opposition to condoms has had serious implications for domestic US policy. Read more...

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court today issued a landmark First Amendment ruling clearing the way for governments to accept permanent monuments of their choosing in public parks. The decision comes in the case of Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, a critical First Amendment case in which we represented the Utah city in a challenge to a display of the Ten Commandments in a city park.

This decision represents a resounding victory for government speech and gives government the right to speak for itself and the ability to communicate on behalf of its citizens. It also clears the way for government to express its views and its history through the selection of monuments – including religious monuments and displays.
Read more...

An important First Amendment religion case is now before the Supreme Court. The high court has agreed to hear a case out of California where a cross has been displayed in the Mojave Desert for since the 1930's.

The federal government asked the Supreme Court to take the case and overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that ordered the removal of the cross after rejecting a move by Congress to transfer the ownership of the land upon which the cross sits to a private party.

This is a case where the Veterans of Foreign Wars erected a cross more than 70 years ago to memorialize fallen service members in a remote area that is now part of a federal preserve. Nearly a decade ago, Congress designated the cross and an area of adjoining property as a national World War I memorial. Read more...

Religious symbols like the cross, the Star of David and the Buddhist Wheel of Life speak with great meaning and power to the adherents of those faiths. They belong in houses of worship or in private homes and must never be co-opted by government.

Unfortunately, we continue to see efforts to merge religion and government through the use of religious symbols. Some people are not satisfied with their right to display religious symbols on private property. They want them on government land as well.

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will hear a case concerning a cross in the Mojave National Preserve in California. The structure was erected by a private group, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). The preserve is federal land. This would seem to be an easy case. Read more...