Yet another state has fallen under the sway of the voucher movement.

New Hampshire legislators have passed a backdoor plan that is catching on in some states. Under the scheme, businesses would be allowed to donate money to organizations that dole out vouchers and then get 85 percent of that money back in the form of a tax credit. Read more

While the rest of us are busy worrying about the economy, partisan gridlock in Washington or maybe even the Facebook IPO, the Kansas legislature has been busy fighting off a perceived “threat” from shariah law.

Seriously. Read more

Last month, the Americans United Legal Department sent a letter to the Reno County Commission in Kansas. A resident of that area had been attending Commission meetings and noticed that just about all of them opened with Christian prayer. That didn’t seem right, so this person contacted us.

Sure enough, our attorneys did some research and found that Christian prayers were used nearly 90 percent of the time to open these government meetings. They promptly wrote a letter to the Commission, letting its members know that this was very problematic from a constitutional standpoint. Read more

It seems Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. just can’t help himself when it comes to political endorsements.

At the Lynchburg, Va., school’s graduation ceremony over the weekend, Falwell made sure to say that inviting Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP candidate for president, in no way constituted an endorsement by the tax-exempt institution. He even said nonprofits like Liberty can’t endorse candidates for office, which is exactly right.

So what did Falwell do next? Read more

The Roman Catholic bishops seem to have a problem with strong, independent women, don’t they?

The hierarchy recently launched an offensive against American nuns, accusing them of supporting “radical feminism” and failing to show sufficient enthusiasm for the bishops’ efforts to ban abortion and deny civil rights to gays. Now the all-male church leadership has decided to subject the Girl Scouts to an inquisition. Read more

By now, everyone knows that President Barack Obama said yesterday that he personally favors marriage equality. Obama said his views on the issue have evolved and told ABC News, “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” Read more

Here’s a question for Mat Staver, head of Liberty Counsel – what do you and your organization have to hide?

Liberty Counsel is a Religious Right legal group operating from Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Liberty University. It does things like argue that the Ten Commandments should be displayed in public buildings, that all abortions should be illegal and that marriage equality should be denied to gay couples.  Read more

Last month I wrote about Religious Right pseudo-historian David Barton’s new book The Jefferson Lies, which attempts to prove that Thomas Jefferson was an orthodox Christian and not really a strong advocate of church-state separation. Read more

In March, Americans United intervened in Lenoir City, Tenn. after we received reports about a public school that openly favors Christianity. Read more

On May 8, a group called Come Pray With Me plans to hold a prayer service in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol.

This is kind of a big deal. Statuary Hall isn’t some sort of public facility that anyone can use. Groups have to get permission from the congressional leadership to hold events there, and it’s not often granted.

So what is Come Pray With Me, and why does it merit this honor? Read more