Recent News & Columns
Here are recent columns and news items from the Baptist Joint Committee. Visit our blog and read our monthly magazine, Report from the Capital, to stay current on all religious liberty news. You can also read our press releases online.
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Cherilyn Crowe
Director of Communications
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Celebrating your commitment to faith freedom for all
BJC works to ensure everyone is free to practice their faith or no faith. Join us and support #FaithFreedomForAll on #GivingTuesday, and receive a gift to show your commitment.
India’s new citizenship law excludes Muslims, leading to mass protests, violence
Violent clashes between protestors and police have erupted across India in response to a new law that grants citizenship to immigrants from certain surrounding countries but specifically excludes Muslims from eligibility.
Fairness For All Act aims to expand nondiscrimination protections, secure religious exemptions
BJC General Counsel Holly Hollman offers analysis on the Fairness for All Act. “Conversations are crucial for all sides to understand our religious differences and find ways we can protect religious liberty for all.”
Justice Department supports religious discrimination lawsuit over school voucher exclusion
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a “Statement of Interest” in the case supporting a federal lawsuit challenging the exclusion of a religious school from a state-funded voucher program.
Giving Tuesday 2019: Standing With Our Neighbors
BJC works to ensure everyone is free to practice their faith or no faith. Join us and support #FaithFreedomForAll on #GivingTuesday, and receive a gift to show your commitment.
New survey confirms again: Americans don’t want to mix election politics and religion
A new Pew Research survey shows yet again that Americans want religion to stay out of the world of electoral politics.
Ohio House passes bill addressing religious expression in public schools
The Ohio House advanced legislation that purports to protect the religious liberty of public school students, but includes provisions giving students the same right to engage in religious activities and expression that they have to secular activities and expression.
BJC urges U.S. Supreme Court to continue distinct treatment of religion in the law
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that asks whether a Montana state provision that bars the government from funding religious institutions unconstitutionally discriminates against religion by denying funding to religious institutions that is available to secular institutions.
Federal court invalidates new HHS rule offering conscience protections for health care providers
A new rule issued by the Trump administration, which grants broad conscience protections to medical institutions and personnel who object to providing certain medical services on religious or moral grounds, has been vacated by a federal judge in New York.
Execution of Buddhist inmate in Texas halted again over flaws in revised chaplain policy
A federal judge again halted Patrick Murphy’s execution, saying the new Texas chaplain policy still fails constitutional scrutiny because it treats inmates of minority faiths differently than those of other faiths
