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.
One way to prevent the government from violating your rights is to stop bad legislation in its tracks. Citizens in Fayetteville, Ark., did just that Tuesday. After the city council of the college town passed a “civil rights” ordinance that undermined basic civil liberties back in August, voters took to the polls to repeal the…
Meet Elijah—a miracle boy. This is his mother, April. His sister, Ellianna. And his father, Jason. Together, with a lot of love, science and difficult choices—they're survivors. This is Elijah in September 2012. At just 25 weeks, Elijah was partially removed from his mother’s womb so surgeons at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia could remove…
The media can’t stop cooing over Kate Middleton’s baby bump. “Prince William, Kate Middleton, and Bump Touch Down in New York City,” proclaimed a Daily Beast headline. NBC’s Today.com announced, “Americans are giving the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge a warm reception for their first visit to the Big Apple, where the royal couple gave…
Clearly the conservative “wave” election last week favored one party over another. Yet on policy issues, is there a unifying thread among newly elected leaders at the federal and state level? Listening in to the winning candidates and their stories, a strong commitment to one cause stands out: protecting life. Young, vibrant and diverse, these leaders…
Sexual liberty and religious liberty need not be in tension. Indeed, most Americans don’t want them to be in tension. It’s true there are bad stories out there where people have been victimized by intolerance. Some of this has been at the hands of market leaders. Consider Brendan Eich, who six years ago made a…
Will Rick Santorum run for president again? The former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania doesn’t waste time denying his interest. In between campaigning for fellow Republicans in the midterm elections, Santorum stopped Friday in Washington, D.C., to speak at The Heritage Foundation’s semiannual President’s Club meeting. Afterward, in an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal, Santorum discussed the…
Perform same-sex wedding ceremonies or pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines and spend months behind bars. That’s the choice their Idaho town gave one Christian couple who have made marriage ministry their life's work. Donald and Eyelyn Knapp, ordained Pentecostal ministers, are married to each other. Together, they have run Hitching Post Lakeside Wedding Chapel in…
Following over a year of rave reviews and prestigious awards at film festivals worldwide, this week the short film “Crescendo” attracted attention thanks to a release on YouTube for free viewing (above). Based on the true story of Ludwig van Beethoven, “Crescendo” touches on issues ripped from today’s headlines—notably, sex trafficking, rape and the prevalence…
There is no doubt that the rights the First Amendment protects–freedom of speech and freedom of religion–are increasingly the most attacked. Some of the most recent high profile cases have revolved around the ongoing attempts by the government via Obamacare to force religious groups to provide contraception coverage in their health plans and taxpayers to…
First the bad news. When it comes to opening the doors to opportunity, a number of cultural trends are not heading in the right direction. The marriage rate is declining. Teen drug use has increased. In fact, a majority of the cultural indicators reported in The Heritage Foundation’s “2014 Index of Culture and Opportunity” are…
The right to live, work and worship according to one’s faith is a freedom foundational to the United States. Many of the first settlers, having faced religious persecution in England, sought a place where they could freely worship and live according to their conscience without interference from the government. The Founders were clear, and the…
With large-scale attacks against Christians by groups such as ISIS in Iraq, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Al-Shabab in Somalia, religious intolerance has been much in the news lately. Christians, of course, are not the only religious group subjected to persecution. Whether it is Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong in China, Baha’is and…
Cosmopolitan magazine is getting serious this year. For the first time ever, the racy women’s reader will be endorsing candidates for office in their #CosmoVotes campaign. .@Cosmopolitan spits in the face of democracy & insults readers’ intelligence. As a dedicated subscriber of women’s magazines from Marie Claire to Women’s Health, I’m well aware of how…
A State Department report on religious freedom released in July showed that repression of religious belief is still the norm in Cuba. The report explains that in Cuba “most religious leaders reported they exercised self-censorship in what they preached during services” because of fear of “government reprisals.” Moreover, while the State Department recognizes that established…
Today President Barack Obama issued an executive order barring federal contractors from what it describes as “discrimination” on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Employers should respect the intrinsic dignity of all of their employees, but today’s executive order undermines our nation’s commitment to pluralism and religious liberty. Today’s executive order does not…
A sweeping bill that could eliminate many commonsense state laws protecting women from the harms of abortion was considered in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. “Imagine the vast majority of pro-life laws wiped out with the enactment of a single piece of federal legislation. That is the purpose behind S. 1696,” summarizes Bill Saunders…
The pitch of public controversy surrounding cultural issues—especially those related to women and reproduction—can give the impression that we live in an intractably divided society with incompatible differences.But the Hobby Lobby decision suggests that such a tone is overwrought. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell correctly…
This week an important religious– liberty law did what it was supposed to do. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) provided the Supreme Court with a mechanism for weighing competing claims in our pluralistic society. The Court determined that we can, in fact, balance seemingly conflicting interests without throwing out…
You don’t have to agree with Hobby Lobby or share its owners’ opposition to abortion to recognize that the government should not be able to force Americans to set aside their deeply held beliefs simply because they go into business. Thankfully, the Supreme Court agreed and upheld the right of Americans to live and work…