A group of conservative lawmakers has been busy reshaping America’s relationship with abortion, LGBTQ issues, and religion. But their ultimate goal — bridging the separation between church and state — is far more ambitious.
Kennedy’s fight to get his job became a cultural touchstone, pitting the religious liberties of government employees against longstanding principles protecting students from religious coercion.
The proposal comes after Texas lawmakers approved a similar measure over the objections of civil rights groups, academics, and even some chaplains themselves.
Texas school districts have until March 1 of next year to decide whether to hire school chaplains.
This issue of A Public Witness looks at the dustup over St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School – a proposed sectarian public school – and the new lawsuit joined by some Baptist and United Church of Christ ministers.
After Christian musician Sean Feucht brought his God and Country concert to the Indiana Statehouse, Hoosier members of the Satanic Temple demanded access for a concert of their own.
This issue of A Public Witness takes you inside the modern debate about public baptisms in Switzerland to consider what this can teach us about balancing church and state.
The ruling is likely to refuel the lingering debate on secularism — still volatile more than a century after the 1905 law on separation of church and state that established it as a principle of the French Republic.
Schools across Louisiana will also receive free LGBTQ+ Pride-themed posters to hang in their classrooms, though the designs might not be what some state lawmakers had in mind when they passed the new mandate Tuesday.
Lawmakers routinely entertain policy ideas shaped by fringe religious views — restrictions placed on transgender residents, anti-abortion propaganda, tax dollars for private schools, a refusal to acknowledge systemic racism.