“It’s a very painful situation that we find ourselves in, of looking at where we’ve been and perhaps making the wrong assumption that so much progress has been made, when we see ourselves retreating right back to some of the same behaviors,” said Sweet Honey in the Rock member Nitanju Bolade Casel.
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January 14, 2016

According to lawyer Douglas Laycock, this religious freedom case is not just about Gregory Holt, the American Muslim convict who now goes by the name of Abdul Maalik Muhammad and who is the plaintiff in Holt v Hobbs. “It’s about all those other prisoners that were not getting their scriptures, not getting their dietary needs, not getting the other things essential to religious practice.” More →

October 3, 2014

“In more than 100 years of living and working in this country it was the first time the Sikh community entered national attention. It was the first time we stood in the national spotlight. It took a butchering for it to happen but it was a moment when the kind of love and support that was expressed was something that made Sikhs feel like they too were seen as fellow Americans.” More →

July 26, 2013

The Supreme Court is weighing the legal challenge to Arizona’s strict immigration law, and religious groups opposed to the law are appealing to language throughout the scriptures “to take care of the stranger,” says Catholic News Service staff writer Patricia Zapor. More →

April 27, 2012

“We don’t want a religious state,” says Muslim Brotherhood member of parliament Ossama Yassin. “We want a modern, civil, democratic state belonging to the people.” More →

February 10, 2012

Catholic Charities in Illinois refuses to accept same-sex couples for adoption or foster parenting. Should the state, which recognizes civil unions, withdraw its funding of the charity? More →

September 30, 2011

Religious leaders have joined civil rights activists, the Justice Department, and others in challenging Alabama’s tough new immigration law. “The government is trying to tell us what we can or can’t do in terms of works of mercy, works of charity, which are fundamental to our faith,” says Father Tom Ackerman of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham. More →

September 23, 2011

“Secularism is indispensable. It’s a protection so everyone has peace, believers and non-believers,” according to one French citizen. More →

June 24, 2011

“For most of the French, religion was an enemy of democracy, liberalization, freedom,” says this political scientist who specializes in Islamic studies, and “a synonym for public disorder.” More →

June 24, 2011

“As Muslim societies wrestle with how to treat religious minorities, let them look to our nation,” said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick this week in his congressional testimony on protecting the civil rights of American Muslims. Watch excerpts from the hearing. More →

March 30, 2011