The Daily Signal reports on faith and religion in America, covering Christian, Jewish, and other faith communities, with analysis and commentary on cultural trends, religious liberty, and moral issues that influence public life.
A central feature of antisemitism is the application of a double standard by treating Jews differently from how other groups would be treated in similar circumstances. By this definition, antisemitism is a common practice at universities. My recent experience at the University of Arkansas helps illustrate the problem. When Donald Trump was elected president in…
On the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Eric Schmitt delivered a speech about the recent wave of antisemitism from college students, and the ideologies driving it. Watch the speech, above, or read his remarks, lightly edited: I rise to bring attention to a problem that’s plaguing our great country. Americans and the rest of the world…
On the morning of Oct. 21, a 40-year-old synagogue president in Detroit named Samantha Woll was found stabbed to death outside her home. It appeared she had been attacked inside, and stumbled outside before being discovered the next morning. In the wake of the horrific Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, it was inevitable…
Anti-Israel protesters briefly derailed a House Judiciary Committee hearing on free speech and antisemitism on college campuses Wednesday morning. Right after committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, swore in the witnesses, a protester shot up, holding a sign reading “Pro-Palestine [doesn’t equal] antisemitism.” The protester shouted something about “genocide,” adding, “Over 10,000 people have been…
Virginia state officials agreed to settle a lawsuit with a Christian wedding photographer after he refused to use his business to celebrate same-sex marriage, according to a press release. Bob Updegrove filed a lawsuit against then-Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring in September 2020 after a state law required him to affirm same-sex marriage in his photography business,…
Roman Catholics and all Christians must push back against antisemitism, especially now because of the rising violence and threats around the world directed against Jewish people, declared Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. “This ultimately is the plea: to lean into our institutions in which there is truth and beauty and goodness and to use those…
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray at times painted a scary picture during their Halloween testimony on Capitol Hill. The two Biden administration officials fielded questions Tuesday from members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Wray warned about possible terrorist attacks on U.S. soil by Hamas or other…
It is rare to see a university publicly complain about regulatory harassment, but Grand Canyon University has good reasons to do so. One of the largest universities in the country, GCU has 25,800 students in person and 92,000 online. It’s a Christian university, but in the eyes of intolerant federal regulators, its brief period as…
President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled a new plan Monday to combat the “alarming” rise in antisemitic rhetoric and violence on college campuses since the brutal Hamas attacks on Israel. Across the nation, pro-Palestinian students (often affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine groups) have held protests that support the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and call for the…
Democrats are trying to make Halloween extra spooky this year by exhuming the boogieman of Christian nationalism. The news hook is the election of a conservative Christian as speaker of the House. Rep. Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, won the election last week. In the left-wing media’s lexicon, Christian nationalism doesn’t refer to the handful…
As the Biden administration pleads with Hamas to release more than 220 hostages, including 10 Americans, and Israel readies for a ground invasion of Gaza, a bipartisan group of more than a dozen current and former members of Congress spent Monday underscoring the continued need to promote religious freedom at home and abroad as a…
There is still hope religious liberty will prevail in America even though many wish to tear it down, including some in government, according to the president of the religious freedom law firm the Becket Fund. Many religious liberty cases succeed because they tap into the “live and let live instinct” of Americans, Mark Rienzi told…
There are times when the Biden administration expresses categorical, unequivocal support for Israel’s war of survival against the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas. “Enough is enough should have been the case with Hamas two weeks ago,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday. “It would be good to hear the entire world speaking clearly and with one…
“Average” is not the adjective that comes to mind when talking about an American who took a religious freedom case all the way to the Supreme Court, but football coach Joe Kennedy says he identified with the word. “I’ve always looked at myself actually [as] below average,” Kennedy says. “I really had no idea that…
Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen blocked a resolution from Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley that would have condemned antisemitic student activities on college campuses. Hawley introduced a Senate Resolution on Thursday condemning antisemitic student groups' protests against Israel, protests that often celebrate and justify the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel. “We must stand together…
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz deeply criticized his alma mater, Harvard University, as well as other "elite" universities whose students have embraced anti-semitic rhetoric and actions in recent weeks. "Sadly, there are few places on earth with more vicious antisemitism and hatred of Israel than American ‘elite’ universities," Cruz said in a statement Wednesday. "It’s…
Catholics around the world prayed and fasted on Tuesday for peace in the Holy Land as Israel continues to respond to attacks by Hamas terrorists. Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, not only invited believers to join with the Catholic Church in dedicating Tuesday to prayer and fasting but also declared Oct….
“It is not for the district court to interpret biblical concepts.” Such was the judgment of the Finnish court tasked with ruling on the case of Päivi Räsänen, a 28-year member of the Finnish parliament, former minister of the interior, medical doctor, grandmother, and Christian prosecuted for “hate speech.” Her “crime”? Publicly sharing her faith-based…
Eight Republican senators are demanding answers from the FBI as the bureau continues to stonewall investigations into the Richmond, Virginia, office's January memo citing the Southern Poverty Law Center to target "radical traditional Catholic hate groups" for surveillance. “The U.S. Constitution protects the right not just to have a faith but to live your faith as well, and the…
ATLANTA—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that the Left’s attacks on religious freedom and parental rights represent an attempt to impose its pseudo-religious “orthodoxy” on society. “They have an orthodoxy on the Left that they want to impose on society, it’s basically their religion,” DeSantis, a leading Republican candidate for president in 2024, said at The…