We wonder whether many of the foot soldiers in the religious-right movement will ever wake up to how they have been used. Over the years we’ve all seen how religious-right pressure groups wade into areas that would seem to have nothing to do with promoting “traditional family values” (whatever that means to them) and other […]
Religious Freedom
Religious Freedom and Public Schools
The Texas Freedom Network has been stepping up efforts to protect the right of families to direct the religious education of their own children as the religious right’s assault on that freedom moves into high gear. The latest example of the right’s increasingly aggressive campaign: an Ohio teacher has filed a lawsuit claiming that public […]
Stoking the Fires of Hate
One of the things you can safely bet on when it comes to the religious right: the worse the fund-raising goes, the more extreme the language gets. Oh sure, it’s not unusual to see nonprofits raise alarm levels in an effort to raise more money. But the religious right seems especially adept (and shameless) in vilifying their vicims, especially gay folks. Case […]
Stem Cell Funding Ban Is Dead!
Texas Monthly’s Burkablog is reporting that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, has given up trying to include a ban on public funding for embryonic stem cell research in the state budget. Patricia Kilday Hart writes that Ogden announced this morning that a House-Senate conference committee “couldn’t come to a consensus” on whether to […]
Dragging Churches into Partisan Politics
The Internal Revenue Service has ruled against a complaint filed by the Texas Freedom Network asking whether a tax-exempt, nonprofit foundation improperly sought to mobilize conservative pastors for partisan electoral purposes beginning in 2005. In January 2008 we asked the IRS to investigate whether the Houston-based Niemoller Foundation improperly engaged in partisan political activity on […]
