The Philippine Supreme Court has upheld a law providing free contraceptives to any woman who requests them, defying opposition by the country’s powerful Catholic bishops. The Reproductive Health Law was signed by President Benigno Aquino III in 2012, but it has languished in the courts ever since thanks to challenges from faith-based lobbies.
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Always beware of the Religious Right when it’s bearing gifts, as was the case at a recent conference attended by roughly 950 pastors in Austin, Texas. Read more
There are days when fundamentalist zealots do something so off the wall that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I do a little bit of both.
Today is one of those days. This emotional roller-coaster comes courtesy of a band of extremists who have fine-tuned creationism and have concluded – wait for it – that Copernicus and Galileo were wrong: The Earth really is the center of the universe. Read more
Ever hungry for a headline, Fox News contributor Todd Starnes has drummed up yet another controversy over religion in public schools. He recently took to his column to tell the tale of a Florida girl, 5-year-old Gabriella Perez, who had allegedly been told by her teacher that she could not pray over her lunch.
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If you want to start a church, all you need is your own television show. So says the Internal Revenue Service, anyway.
A recent report by National Public Radio (NPR) told the puzzling story of Daystar, a televangelist network based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The network, which is run by Marcus and Joni Lamb, is “dedicated to spreading the Gospel 24 hours a day, seven days a week” to its potential audience of 2 billion worldwide. Read more
Mississippi is the latest state to send “religious freedom” legislation to the governor’s desk, prompting fresh controversy over what critics believe is a license to discriminate against LGBT people.
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When it comes to selling Floridians on the need for an expanded school voucher program, it seems honesty is not the best policy. Read more
I’m not a lawyer, but let me give you a little free legal advice anyway: It’s never a good idea to defy a federal judge’s ruling. Read more
A Christian charity’s decision to hire married LGBT individuals was almost immediately reversed after an outcry from the Religious Right, prompting questions about the federal funding it receives for its work.
World Vision, which uses child sponsorships to deliver aid to developing communities, announced the change to its hiring policies on Monday. Read more
An Oklahoma judge who used the Bible as the basis for denying name-change requests by women who had gender-reassignment surgery has been overruled by a higher court. Read more
