On The Front Lines
Institute Releases Special Report: 'Religious Freedom Under Siege in America'
WASHINGTON, DC -- Calling on more than two decades of experience in fighting to protect religious expression in public, The Rutherford Institute has released a Special Report on "Religious Freedom Under Siege in America." To read the full report, click here. Rutherford Institute client Nashala Hearn and her father Eyvine will also appear today before a U.S. Senate Subcommittee to testify about their experience with hostility to religious expression in the public schools. Recently, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute successfully defended 11-year-old Nashala's right to wear a religious head covering, which is required by her Islamic faith, after school officials twice suspended her for wearing the head covering in violation of a zero tolerance policy banning all headwear in school. Under terms of the settlement, the school district agreed to change its dress code to allow exceptions for religious reasons. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Constitution subcommittee, invited the Hearns and others to testify at the hearing addressing hostility against religious expression in public. Don Stewart, a Cornyn spokesman, said the goal of the hearing is to find a way to balance the separation of church and state with citizens' rights to express their religious beliefs."Religious discrimination in contemporary American society is an epidemic of which most Americans are completely unaware," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "Believing that the battle for religious freedom was won long ago, many Americans have gone in search of other battles. But the truth of the matter is that religious freedom is under siege today."
According to The Rutherford Institute's "Religious Freedom Under Siege in America" report, "While most religious persons in our society do not encounter threats of persecution for practicing their religious beliefs in their homes or in their houses of worship, these same religious persons do indeed face ridicule, censorship and even persecution when they attempt to live out their religious beliefs and express them in the public arena." In describing what religious discrimination looks like in contemporary America, the report points to at least two trends in modern-day religious discrimination. The first is the misuse of the Establishment Clause to silence private religious expression. The second is the propagation of a so-called politically correct "tolerance" that, in fact, tolerates only the most diluted and least meaningful forms of religious expression and commitment. The report concludes by stating that Americans "should be deeply troubled by the 'privatization' of religion in America. The assault on expression of faith in the public square is felt most keenly by those for whom faith cannot be separated from the other aspects of life. But society as a whole will be affected by the continued extraction of substantive religious expression from the public arena. Our country's citizens are not so fragile that they require protection from those who exercise their First Amendment rights. Rather, exposing America to the robust debate intrinsic to the free marketplace of ideas empowers us all to contribute our own ideas to the debate."
The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.
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