BEAVER, PA, November 30, 2017—Almost six months after First Liberty Institute sent a letter to the Beaver Area School District (BASD) regarding the district’s religious censorship of high school senior Moriah Bridge’s graduation remarks, BASD has changed course. BASD has enacted a new policy explicitly stating the expressions of students and/or other private speakers at future graduation ceremonies “shall...

  By: Kelly Shackelford and James C. Ho – thehill.com – September 1, 2017 The day after the U.S. Supreme Court ended its 2015-2016 term, three justices issued a troubling statement. It was four months after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, and the Court had just fallen one vote short of taking a significant religious freedom case. In response, Justice...

By: William M. Briggs – stream.org – August 30, 2017 The Freedom From Religion Foundation is so upset that Senator Marco Rubio has been tweeting quotations from the Bible, they wrote him a hot letter about it. Professing themselves to be wise, the group became fools and say Senators quoting the Bible is a “constitutional violation.” We understand that you have been...

  by: David French – nationalreview.com – August 30, 2017 A mayor’s backlash against a basic statement of Evangelical Christian belief signals an ominous turn in the culture wars. Don’t ever forget that, for some folks, “separation of church and state” is a half-measure. It’s just a pit stop on the road to de-Christianizing America. It’s a temporary means to...

by Joe Carter – hegospelcoalition.org – June 8, 2017 The Story: In a confirmation hearing of an executive branch nominee, two U.S. senators imply that those who believe Jesus is the only way to salvation are “Islamophobic” and not fit for public office. The Background: Last year, a controversy erupted when a political science professor at Wheaton College decided to wear a...

By: Fred Lucas – @FredLucasWH – May 31, 2017 A farmers market and Facebook posts have opened a new front in courtroom battles over religious freedom. It started when Steve Tennes, who owns a 120-acre farm in Charlotte, Michigan, expressed his traditional view about marriage on the farm’s Facebook page. This drew a warning from an official more than 20...

Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO and Chief Counsel of First Liberty Institute, today praised President Trump’s new Executive Order promoting free speech and religious liberty. In a statement, Shackelford said: “President Trump’s executive order on religious liberty should be both unnecessary and unremarkable. Yet activists have pledged to challenge President Trump in court for supporting the First Amendment. Our country was...

President Trump signed an executive order “promoting free speech and religious liberty” on Thursday. The final version of the order addresses two issues. First, it instructs the Internal Revenue Service to “not take any adverse action against any individual, house of worship, or other religious organization” that endorse or oppose candidates from the pulpit, which is currently outlawed by a...

President Trump signed an executive order “promoting free speech and religious liberty” on Thursday. The final version of the order addresses two issues. First, it instructs the Internal Revenue Service to “not take any adverse action against any individual, house of worship, or other religious organization” that endorse or oppose candidates from the pulpit, which is currently outlawed by a...

For the first time ever, the United States was included in the International Christian Concern’s annual “Hall of Shame Report.” In the 2016 edition, released last week, the U.S. appeared in the “New and Noteworthy” category. “The persecution in these countries is not anywhere near the same level of persecution as those in the rest of the list,” the report explains, “but...