This video column expresses the views of Benjamin P. Marcus, fellow for religious freedom, Freedom Forum. Watch First Five Express In a religiously diverse country, how do we make people of all religions and none feel like equal members of our community?
This column expresses the views of Benjamin P. Marcus, religious literacy specialist, Religious Freedom Center of the Freedom Forum. The U.S. Supreme Court has set the stage for new battles about government funding for private religious schools. By ruling that state governments choosing to subsidize private education must offer equal treatment to religious and secular […]
The First Amendment has had a landmark year — and it’s only June. The devout invoke religious freedom while debating whether it is appropriate to ban in-person religious services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The socially conscious assemble to protest en masse against police brutality and to affirm that Black lives matter. Journalists risk their safety […]
The government should not be in the business of telling religious communities who to hire or fire as religious leaders.
The COVID-19 pandemic is not under control in the United States. The disease is still deadly, especially for those who are elderly or immunocompromised. The Trump administration projects deaths per day will nearly double in the United States between now and June 1. Yet some states are starting to lift restrictions on in-person gatherings for […]
As a child, I attended weekend classes at our local synagogue to learn about Judaism. I remember one lesson above all from those years: past Jewish experience of pogroms and the Holocaust demands that Jews speak out against authoritarianism in the present and future.
Americans sometimes assume they are equipped with everything they need — laws, policies and cultural norms — to exercise their right to religious freedom. But is that true? What circumstances need to exist for religious freedom to be possible? What conditions must already be in place if Americans are to exercise their right to believe […]
The U.S. Department of Education announced a number of proposed rules and guidance related to religion and public schools last week on National Religious Freedom Day. Predictably, headlines focused on what the guidance means for students’ right to pray.
