In case you missed it, last week The Daily Show ran a funny piece on the battle over the re-election of Joe Straus as speaker of the Texas House. The show poked fun at the “miracle” of electing a Jewish speaker in a famously Christian land like Texas. And predictably, they found plenty of religious […]
Religious Freedom
The Texas Freedom Network supports the constitutional guarantee of the separation of church and state, which protects the right of all Americans to practice the faith of their choice, or none at all, free of government interference.
Unfortunately, efforts to knock down that wall are a constant in Texas. Politicians and extremists continually work to impose their views on others, especially around issues like abortion, access to contraception, and LGBTQIA+ equality. And in a distortion of the principle of religious freedom, far-right groups have supported legislative efforts to allow people to use religion as an excuse to ignore laws they might not like and even as a weapon to discriminate against others.
Resources
- Prayer in Public Schools: A Primer (2001 report)
- The Texas Faith-Based Initiative (2002 report)
- The National Day of Prayer Task Force: Turning a Day of Faith into a Rally for the Christian Right (2005 Report)
- A Report on The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (2005 report)
- Reading, Writing & Religion: Teaching the Bible in Texas Public Schools (2006 report)
- Reading, Writing & Religion II (2013 report)
- Can This Class Be Saved? The ‘Hobby Lobby’ Public School Bible Curriculum (2014 report)
- Turning Texas Public Schools into Sunday Schools? A Review of the State’s Proposed K-5 Reading Curriculum (2024 report) | Executive Summary
Defend Stem Cell Research in Texas
The religious right’s war on science and responsible medical research in Texas is sure to heat up during the current legislative session in Austin. So the Texas Freedom Network is once again working with coalition partners to defend one of the far right’s major targets: embryonic stem cell research. You can help by joining TFN […]
No Muslim Schools Allowed?
It turns out that a prominent association of private secular and religious schools in Texas welcomes many religious institutions as members — but not, apparently, Islamic private schools. A story in the San Antonio Express-News over the weekend reports that the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) denied membership to one Islamic school […]
Learning More about Stem Cell Research
Stem cell research, which gives hope to so many people struggling with serious medical conditions like Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and cancer, remains a political battleground in Texas. While embryonic stem cell research is currently legal in Texas, religious-right groups continue to pressure lawmakers to ban that important work or severely limit its funding. In 2009, […]
The Year in Quotes: Religious Freedom
Threats to religious freedom — and the constitutional protections for that freedom — were evident in much of the far right’s political rhetoric in 2010. Some right-wing politicians even sought to turn religion and government into enemies by using faith as a political weapon. You can read more of our review of what the far […]
