Because of RFRA, a federal judge ruled that the criminal convictions of volunteers with the group No More Deaths must be overturned because they were acting in accordance with their sincere religious beliefs when they entered a wildlife refuge near the southern border in Arizona to leave water and food for those crossing into the United States.
Opportunity scholarships present all of the same religious liberty problems that school vouchers do. Using taxpayer funds for religious education is a bad idea for both the church and the state.
President Trump has announced an expansion of his administration’s “travel ban.” As BJC Executive Director Amanda Tyler explains in response to this latest announcement, the policy is ultimately rooted in anti-Muslim bias.
A pair of House subcommittees held a joint hearing focusing on the plight of religious minorities and nontheists around the world at the hands of their governments, aided in part by blasphemy and heresy laws. BJC supports resolutions calling for the repeal of those laws worldwide.
During the oral argument, the Court wrestled with whether treating religion differently when it comes to government funding is unlawful discrimination. BJC’s brief noted that declining to fund religious education with taxpayer funds is a long-standing means of ensuring religious liberty.