https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to discrimination/religious freedom en https://religiondispatches.org/2025/09/23/hindu-nationalism-explained WHAT IN THE WHAT?? This is the first installment in RD’s latest series, “What in the What??,” in which our experts offer insight into religious political movements currently shaping our world. Our inaugural expert, Dr. Audrey Truschke, is the author… Tue, 23 Sep 2025 03:59:54 EDT Audrey Truschke b716212e-d8a4-4baf-9be7-fe7173d795bc https://religiondispatches.org/2025/07/21/landor-babylon-how-rastafaris-case-against-prison-injustice-could-be-used-weaponize Last month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety , a case brought by Damon Landor after officers at the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center forcibly shaved off Landor’s dreadlocks despite his Rastafari… Mon, 21 Jul 2025 12:38:30 EDT Christian Pattavina ae4259a6-198f-4c4b-ab13-fcf0c879dcc4 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/06/27/tenth-anniversary-obergefell-ruling-christian-right-still-waging-war-marriage-equality This week marks the 10th anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges , the landmark Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry nationwide. Though celebrated by the more than half a million people who have exercised that right… Fri, 27 Jun 2025 12:37:17 EDT Annie Wilkinson c856e51a-6d6f-4421-9640-52ecd31809c9 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/05/13/remembering-move-american-religion Forty years ago today, the city of Philadelphia dropped a bomb on itself. The city of Philadelphia let that fire burn for more than a day while firetrucks and firefighters stood watching the flames destroy 61 homes, decimating an entire… Tue, 13 May 2025 04:30:04 EDT Megan Goodwin 6cb52b99-4a3b-4e89-9a09-8eb00692af12 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/03/12/trumps-pick-fda-commissioner-hedges-abortion-pill-which-safer-tylenol-viagra-or-giving During his confirmation hearing last Thursday, Trump nominee Dr. Marty Makary equivocated on whether Americans will maintain access to medication abortions if he’s confirmed as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Makary, a public policy researcher and… Wed, 12 Mar 2025 10:51:19 EDT Megan Goodwin fdfb7500-0b7e-4111-ab94-cd47e8d539a3 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/01/08/dont-call-him-evangelical-how-remember-jimmy-carters-faith-and-how-not Jimmy Carter was an evangelical. A liberal evangelical. A liberal evangelical in the age before the Christian Right supported a conservative revolution that swept Republican Ronald Reagan into power. The story has old roots. As Jimmy Carter campaigned for the… Wed, 08 Jan 2025 02:19:20 EST Austin Lee Steelman ceaa94b2-7a76-40db-a14a-b24c4d7394a6 https://religiondispatches.org/2024/08/28/will-iowas-abortion-ban-respect-religious-freedom Iowa’s 6-week abortion ban went into effect last month, meaning that more than 600,000 women of reproductive age now lack access to legal abortion in the state. While the law claims to offer exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, incest, and… Wed, 28 Aug 2024 03:30:38 EDT Christine Ryan 139cf649-0fe7-4f38-a91c-da1c9a459e96 https://religiondispatches.org/2024/08/19/want-know-what-public-education-would-look-under-project-2025-just-take-look-oklahoma UPDATE (12:03 pm ET on 8/20/24): This piece has been updated to include information on a recently released undercover video. - eds ” Project 2025 is not some far off possibility for Oklahomans, it has been our reality for some… Mon, 19 Aug 2024 03:00:33 EDT Andrew L. Seidel 40448ec0-f1bf-49c0-9761-a717e9486a4e https://religiondispatches.org/2024/03/05/alabamas-ivf-ruling-reveals-deep-ties-increasingly-influential-christian-right-movement In the Alabama Supreme Court’s IVF ruling that sent shockwaves through the country, the word “God” appears 41 times—and that’s no coincidence. Embryos, according to Alabama’s highest court, are in fact “extrauterine children”—a phrase so dystopian it would make Margaret… Tue, 05 Mar 2024 05:29:17 EST Annika Brockschmidt e4a60f3b-6173-4b0b-ab29-7719222b2f20 https://religiondispatches.org/2024/01/11/oklahoma-bill-would-violate-basic-freedoms-rewrite-ten-commandments In the waning days of 2023, a banner year for Christian nationalism, Oklahoma State Representative Jim Olsen introduced a bill that would force every public school to display his version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Olsen, a Sunday… Thu, 11 Jan 2024 04:44:49 EST Andrew L. Seidel b7875ce8-e7b1-4b84-bd10-6f0e7492acad https://religiondispatches.org/2023/12/05/hail-santa-war-christmas-outrage-over-satanic-tree-reveals-self-serving-ambiguity Forget ugly sweater parties , this is our new national Christmas tradition: 1) a public venue creates a forum and invites everyone to erect displays; 2) Secular Humanists, Satanists, and other subversives participate; 3) moral entrepreneurs feign outrage that the… Tue, 05 Dec 2023 04:35:24 EST Joseph Laycock 8d7487a3-0cae-44ab-8245-ce570939c83d https://religiondispatches.org/2023/06/30/contrary-popular-narrative-supreme-courts-303-decision-gutting-civil-rights-laws-not Today the U.S. Supreme Court gutted our system of civil rights laws that have done so much to advance America’s aspirational promise of equality. Worse, the court eviscerated equality in a case it never should have heard. 303 Creative LLC… Fri, 30 Jun 2023 04:57:27 EDT Andrew L. Seidel 53890dfe-f16e-441d-8840-8207013929c4 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/04/28/set-privilege-christianity-public-schools-texas-sends-message-about-who-welcome-and-who The Texas Legislature is set to enact three laws to redefine the rules concerning religion in public schools. One will allow students and teachers to engage in Bible reading during the school day; a second will require the posting of… Fri, 28 Apr 2023 04:48:03 EDT Steven K. Green f6261615-c190-40bc-bee4-34fcc7c2d732 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/04/20/court-prepares-rule-sacred-apache-site-religious-freedom-faces-american-right-prized As the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals gets ready to hand down a decision in Apache Stronghold v. United States , religious leaders—Sikh, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Mennonite—who have filed amicus briefs urging the court to protect not only Apache sacred… Thu, 20 Apr 2023 04:12:27 EDT Dana Lloyd 79ec9419-6b73-4299-8a71-95f67c157ace https://religiondispatches.org/2023/04/17/catholic-groups-leading-mifepristone-ban-are-part-century-long-tradition-who-see-it In 1995, following a spate of lethal violence against abortion providers across the United States, Catholic bioethicist Dr. G. Kevin Donovan predicted that the abortion movement faced an imminent moral and logistical dilemma. The anti-abortion movement’s extremist efforts to “seize… Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:45:05 EDT Lauren Barbato 2d0d95f6-340a-4498-a59b-867ca650e1e2 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/04/10/christian-nationalist-judge-strikes-down-fda-approved-abortion-pill-brazenly-ideological Mifepristone is safer than aspirin. Much safer . The FDA approved the drug for early abortions in 2000, after fully —and carefully—vetting it over four-and-a-half years (more than triple the time such approvals typically take). On Friday, in a federal… Mon, 10 Apr 2023 01:57:28 EDT Andrew L. Seidel bce0f23c-1343-48b0-a954-a17e76ad2b13 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/02/10/70th-national-prayer-breakfast-made-cosmetic-changes-biden-delivered-same-old-tone-deaf Last week, Americans were forced to endure this year’s National Prayer Breakfast —the 70th since the unfortunate tradition, which ought to have been dropped as an embarrassing relic of early Cold War excess decades ago, was launched by the authoritarian… Fri, 10 Feb 2023 04:21:22 EST Chrissy Stroop 5a726a5a-a97c-4642-85ac-491c7fecbba8 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/01/26/hamline-case-free-expression-vs-religious-sensibilities-frame-obscures-stark-reality Recently, Hamline University faculty called for the resignation of President Fayneese Miller following the firing of adjunct professor Erika López Prater for showing the image of the Prophet in Islamic art. While most commentators have focused on the wisdom and… Thu, 26 Jan 2023 04:50:21 EST Junaid Jahangir b4a9923f-8f05-44b2-8594-90d302ed5065 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/01/10/celebrating-religious-freedom-day-taking-back-revolutionary-meaning-religious-freedom Religious freedom has been at the center of American history since the founding. (And by the founding , I mean of the United States of America , not including the roughly century-and-a-half of colonial era.) There’s a story of religious… Tue, 10 Jan 2023 12:09:48 EST Frederick Clarkson 53ffc929-a1d7-4534-854e-e4b4545b0011 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/01/09/no-longer-content-right-opt-out-conservative-christians-asking-courts-eliminate-rights Last week, the Texas Tribune reported that 156 federally-funded family planning programs in Texas must now require parental consent in order to provide teen patients with contraceptive services. Why? Because one Texas parent wants to raise his daughters “ in… Mon, 09 Jan 2023 12:00:28 EST Elizabeth Platt 25442557-9d9c-4f6d-beb8-aec9b5a0e32e https://religiondispatches.org/2022/12/16/what-protests-and-executions-iran-can-tell-us-about-america-and-fall-roe-v-wade The separation of religion and government is a basic human right. The protests in Iran and the theocratic regime’s lethal attempts to suffocate the spark of human freedom are a case study proving this truism. But that regime’s obsessive imposition… Fri, 16 Dec 2022 02:43:52 EST Andrew L. Seidel 1fac4284-04f8-4052-882c-05facba50153 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/12/08/303-creative-not-religion-v-gay-rights-case-heres-why-christian-right-happy-media On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in 303 Creative v. Elenis , the latest case to pit the Christian Right against LGBTQ people. Or is it? “Supreme Court Will Hear Latest Clash Between Faith and Gay Rights.” “Masterpiece… Thu, 08 Dec 2022 11:48:35 EST Heron Greenesmith 79d89063-59ea-4d81-80f3-93d9ac77a8e8 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/12/05/espionage-allegations-against-russian-church-raise-religious-freedom-issue-ukraine Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for “targeted closures” of “Moscow-backed” religious organizations in Ukraine, a more polite way of saying that he wants effectively to ban the Russian Orthodox Church . To be clear, the decree signed by… Mon, 05 Dec 2022 05:01:31 EST Katherine Kelaidis 2e598001-0b2c-40c9-9d3c-7a8ef7bcc70e https://religiondispatches.org/2022/11/21/three-cheers-mormon-support-same-sex-legislation-not-so-fast Last week, the LDS Church formally came out in support of the federal Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA), a legislative initiative that would repeal the notorious Bill Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and compel all American states to honor… Mon, 21 Nov 2022 01:27:33 EST Chrissy Stroop 3d36242a-419b-49d8-b44a-286106c411b6 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