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In the Indian city of Rajkot, a number of Hindu organizations, supported by both the Congress and BJP parties, have launched demonstrations to protest the arrest by local police of 37 people who displayed swords in a procession last week celebrating the Hindu festival of Maha Shivratri (The Night of Shiva). Express India today reports that [...]

Fourteen religious groups– Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Sikh– today urged political candidates to avoid inappropriate emphasis on religious belief in the upcoming campaign season. (Press release.) In a document titled Religion in Political Campaigns — An Interfaith Statement of Principles, drafted by the Anti-Defamation League, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Interfaith Alliance, [...]

William Clowes: Islamic countries’ “religious intolerance” move ignores oppression at home THE FREE SPEECH BLOG

Today was Religious Freedom Day, marking the 226th anniversary of the adoption of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Last week, President Obama issued an official Presidential Proclamation (full text) declaring the observance. The Proclamation reads in part: For nearly four centuries, men and women have immigrated to America’s shores in pursuit of religious freedom. [...]

In December, parent Ginger Strivelli complained to the principal at North Windy Ridge intermediate school in Buncombe County, North Carolina because her son brought home one of the Gideon Bibles that the school had made available in an office for any student who wanted to pick one up.  In response, the principal said that any [...]

CNN yesterday posted a lengthy report on Republican Presidential hopeful Herman Cain’s religious faith and his active involvement as an associate minister in Atlanta’s Antioch Baptist Church– a congregation Cain’s parents joined when Cain was 10 years old.  CNN reports: Cain’s religiosity runs deep enough that he regularly delivers sermons at his childhood church, has [...]

In Deyton v. Keller, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110631 (WD NC, Sept. 27, 2011), a North Carolina federal district court in a habeas corpus proceeding rejected claims that a state court judge’s religious comments made during a sentencing hearing violated the due process rights of defendants who plead guilt to robbing a church. However the [...]

Yesterday, in a complicated series of eight opinions from 16 judges spanning 100 pages, a majority of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, held that Plano, Texas school principals had qualified immunity in a lawsuit charging them with restricting elementary school students’ distribution of religious literature because the law was not [...]

JTA yesterday reported that a French iPhone app called “Jew or Not Jew?” was removed from the French iPhone app store after Jewish groups and human rights groups claimed it violates French law. The app allows the user to guess whether various public figures are Jewish or not.  French law prohibits the collection of personal [...]

In the wake of a widely-publicized denial last week by the Washington state Department of General Administration for a church to conduct a baptism ceremony in the state-owned Heritage Park (see prior posting), AP has examined the record of past permit approvals and denials. It found that prayer, church picnics and advertising for fundraisers by [...]