https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to Becket en https://religiondispatches.org/2022/11/01/yeshiva-likely-win-its-battle-against-lgbtq-group-do-jewish-orgs-really-want-empower Yeshiva University (YU), a storied New York City Orthodox Jewish institution, is the unlikely darling du jour of political and legal conservatives. Sued for discrimination by a group of students and alumni after it refused to recognize an undergraduate Pride… Tue, 01 Nov 2022 11:58:53 EDT Orit Avishai 26f9af27-f212-4f3d-8433-f999ab7fb4bf https://religiondispatches.org/2020/04/21/will-pandemic-hasten-decline-christianity-or-it-americas-best-hope-religious-revival On April 2, BuzzFeed’s Ryan Broderick published some sober reflections on how our world might be changed after we get through the COVID-19 pandemic. While there’s no way to predict the future with any precision, it seems certain that post-coronavirus… Tue, 21 Apr 2020 01:04:29 EDT Chrissy Stroop eb461c5f-1d25-40d1-b279-ec761a9fcc9f https://religiondispatches.org/2019/05/06/long-lying-congress-barrs-views-church-and-state-should-have-disqualified-him In the 1990s, Barr attacked the very concept of secular government and in one speech said advocates of secularism “are clearly fanatics.” Barr’s advocacy of “God’s law” is especially alarming. Mon, 06 May 2019 01:40:00 EDT Becky Garrison 8ef0f452-c20f-418a-82e7-02b6253fd2e0 https://religiondispatches.org/2018/01/02/will-2018-be-year-catholic-health-care-dominance The news that two major Catholic health care systems, Ascension and Providence St. Joseph Health, are considering a merger that would create a nearly 200-hospital behemoth spanning 27 states raises questions about the expanded imposition of Catholic ethical norms on… Tue, 02 Jan 2018 12:34:12 EST Patricia Miller 9526d6ba-8458-4f51-9782-2b4991f5a3d8 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/11/14/evangelical-author-why-christian-conservatives-supported-trump Though he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots, the Electoral College carried Donald Trump across the line with razor thin victories in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Nationally, he relied very heavily on support from a base few… Tue, 14 Nov 2017 01:42:11 EST Eric C. Miller 27eb82ac-de61-4f79-b544-639e9b9ab0f9 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/11/09/why-notre-dames-contraception-flip-flop-undercuts-bishops-religious-freedom-claims Its been one of the epic culture-war battles of the last decade. It spawned the entire “religious liberty” meme that animates the rapidly rotting corpse of the GOP. When the Obama administration said that health insurance should include no-cost contraceptives… Thu, 09 Nov 2017 04:12:28 EST Patricia Miller e74148cc-a148-4b2a-bbaf-c6844ee3aaea https://religiondispatches.org/2017/10/12/three-takeaways-contraceptive-mandate-religious-liberty-debacle There were two major winners in Trump’s long-expected executive order to gut ObamaCare’s contraceptive mandate: the Catholic bishops, who ginned up this particular culture-war debacle in the first place, and the evangelical right, which was happy to take up the… Thu, 12 Oct 2017 12:57:13 EDT Patricia Miller 354085cb-df36-491c-8e54-473d68c3f721 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/10/09/whats-behind-trumps-impossibly-stupid-roll-back-contraception-mandate If it’s not obvious why the Trump administration has decided to roll back regulations requiring employers to offer contraceptive coverage in their health plans: it’s the base, duh. This is little more than Trump paying off conservative Christians, who are… Mon, 09 Oct 2017 02:14:31 EDT Daniel Schultz 53a065d0-faeb-4943-9c9f-e87ec4ad0036 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/08/16/can-catholic-church-survive-trump The bishops helped radicalize white Catholics to be favorable to Trump—which they were, with 60 percent backing him despite all-but-explicit condemnations by Pope Francis: Wed, 16 Aug 2017 03:32:50 EDT Patricia Miller 78b4a4a4-4db8-492b-821d-662e26eac6eb https://religiondispatches.org/2017/08/07/most-ridiculous-responses-vaticans-call-out-catho-christian-right It’s not surprising that the apparently Vatican-approved denouncement of the conservative Catholic-Christian alliance that has come to dominate U.S. politics ruffled some feathers. What is surprising is the sheer amount of denial and obfuscation that the article in La Civiltà… Mon, 07 Aug 2017 01:21:28 EDT Patricia Miller 3741401c-a2da-4f4c-bb8e-af620b7e903b https://religiondispatches.org/2017/04/06/religion-only-tool-left-legal-discrimination While many mistakenly believe that the law protects LGBTQ Americans from employment discrimination (excepting efforts to carve out religious exemptions), the fact remains that this is not universally the case. Such was not the case, for example, for Kimberly Hivey… Thu, 06 Apr 2017 11:46:39 EDT Sunnivie Brydum 6b1d275a-ae92-4885-98c0-b54379688936 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/01/31/deafening-silence-religious-freedom-defenders-trumps-muslim-ban For once, I agree with right-wing claims that religious freedom in America is under attack. This central tenet of American democracy is facing its most egregious assault in nearly 70 years. But this salvo isn’t coming from secular, liberal-minded progressives… Tue, 31 Jan 2017 04:26:31 EST Sunnivie Brydum 3cbc9224-6d7b-46e3-b9e3-e353da4be1bd https://religiondispatches.org/2016/10/05/does-religious-freedom-deserve-scare-quotes This new, mutant form of “religious liberty” does indeed deserve scare quotes. Wed, 05 Oct 2016 02:12:45 EDT Sunnivie Brydum 66eb1d47-e880-46cf-bef0-f86f45f87213 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/05/17/why-i-miss-scalia-scotus-punts-religious-freedom Is it the habits? The crosses? What is it about the Little Sisters of the Poor that seems to have the power to cloud the mind of the Supreme Court? If you substituted any other word for “contraception” in the… Tue, 17 May 2016 11:04:28 EDT Patricia Miller 7d84770c-1dae-4107-b777-49fd2949d7cf https://religiondispatches.org/2016/03/22/little-sisters-being-sold-face-contraception-case As the Scalia-less Supreme Court gets ready to hear the latest challenge to the contraceptive mandate, almost two years to the day after it heard the historic Hobby Lobby case, you could be forgiven for thinking that the case is… Tue, 22 Mar 2016 04:46:03 EDT Patricia Miller 00df6014-5b42-4f3f-9ffb-da6139e6ad55 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/03/10/silence-religious-liberty-activists-muslims-cases-not-what-you-think It’s the economics, stupid. Thu, 10 Mar 2016 11:19:59 EST Elizabeth Platt e58c6271-156e-4d67-93a7-37d9134d30e2 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/01/13/religious-freedom-advocates-warn-theocratic-zones-control With Kim Davis and representatives of the Little Sisters of the Poor both trotted out as as GOP guests at President Obama’s state of the union speech, it’s clear that “religious freedom” is here to stay as an animating issue… Wed, 13 Jan 2016 04:54:30 EST Patricia Miller 8372d47e-5332-440f-b6d9-9c2500142cd1 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/07/religious-exceptions-not-so-exceptional-according-new-study One of the assumptions behind those seeking a religious exception to the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act—as well as behind religious exceptions in general—is that they are more or less exceptional. By that I mean that they are… Mon, 07 Dec 2015 02:53:21 EST Patricia Miller e4950a18-4423-4186-acbc-b157a1a27c50 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/11/09/3-reasons-scotus-challenge-contraceptive-mandate-religious-liberty-stalking-horse Now that the Supreme Court has announced that it will hear a consolidated set of cases regarding objections to the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act, including the suit brought by the Becket Fund on behalf of the Little… Mon, 09 Nov 2015 04:12:35 EST Patricia Miller 4355f0e6-e15b-4aa6-8b70-3f88e71e710a https://religiondispatches.org/2015/09/21/paperwork-defense-takes-step-closer-supreme-court Employers who refuse to even fill out paperwork for their religious accommodation on contraception win a battle… Mon, 21 Sep 2015 12:35:46 EDT Patricia Miller 712ec2aa-8a81-4857-bc96-4a8eea3dbad1 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/08/03/wheatons-decision-end-student-insurance-religious-liberty-ruse Wheaton College grabbed headlines last week for its decision to end student health insurance rather than comply with the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act. And by comply, I mean: tell the government that it refuses to provide contraception… Mon, 03 Aug 2015 02:13:55 EDT Patricia Miller e0cd8d1b-9c9a-433e-b3cb-60e739e6d2b6 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/07/24/win-natural-family-crowd-un-human-rights-council … and much more, in this week’s LGBT Global Recap. Fri, 24 Jul 2015 10:27:15 EDT Peter Montgomery 3be3e7c5-db8a-40ac-8a54-b79d04bf007b https://religiondispatches.org/2015/07/16/how-little-sisters-won-losing-religious-liberty-case Anyone scanning the headlines about the federal appeals court’s rejection of the Little Sisters of the Poor’s challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate could be forgiven for thinking that the Little Sisters lost: Denver’s Little Sisters of the… Thu, 16 Jul 2015 02:51:03 EDT Patricia Miller c7dfd9f7-c96e-4563-b2b1-360d13abad1c https://religiondispatches.org/2015/01/23/refusal-write-anti-gay-cake-message-violation-religious-freedom Denver, Colorado can feel like an alternate universe for a lot of reasons, but now we can add a new one to the list. Because in the first such case of which I’m aware, a bakery in Denver has been… Fri, 23 Jan 2015 02:20:38 EST Kara Loewentheil 1f186f18-72df-46f8-8e30-5ff78d2d154e https://religiondispatches.org/2014/12/22/top-five-toxic-religion-stories-2014 From religious violence to fear of contagion to economic and racial injustice: taking full measure of what we are up against. Mon, 22 Dec 2014 12:40:14 EST Peter Laarman 78bb5a8c-204d-44dc-90a8-2ee2059947eb