The White House is planning a muted observance of Thursday's National Day of Prayer, a response that has disappointed both Christian conservatives and an atheist group that wants to end the tradition. Congress established the day in 1952 and in 1988 set the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray. ... [More]

Republican Congressman John Fleming said he was “disturbed” by President Barack Obama’s request to have the symbolic name for Jesus Christ – IHS – covered from a pediment that was visible behind him when he spoke at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall on April 14. ... [More]

Not all that long ago, the great minds of Europe predicted a future with little or no religion. Science would make us highly skeptical of miracles. Psychiatry would direct all of our awe and wonder inward. Changing roles for women would weaken the patriarchal structure that props up clerics. Whatever script for modernity one followed, it had God playing a bit role. ... [More]

The U.S. imprisons more people than any other developed nation. The majority of Americans support the death penalty. We’re willing to put minors on trial as adults and execute mentally ill offenders. So why, given our eye-for-an-eye system of punishment, wouldn’t Congress pass legislation that would give law enforcement officials another tool to get the bad guys off the streets and into prisons? ... [More]

Some here in the West have reacted with shock in response to the new Afghanistan law that gives Shiite men permission to rape their wives, even though President Hamid Karzai claims that we're simply misinterpreting this law. In other words, we've lost something in the translation. I won't pretend to know if that is the case or not, but I don't think it's too big of a stretch to believe that women's rights are once again being compromised. ... [More]

In a Washington Post op-ed article Friday, columnist Michael Gerson examines the facts related to a recent Newsweek cover story entitled "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." According to Gerson, the Newsweek story overstates the evidence for decline. ... [More]

A nation facing problems of biblical proportions appears to be looking less and less to religion for answers. According to a new NEWSWEEK Poll, the percentage of Americans who think faith will help answer all or most of the country's current problems dipped to a historic low of 48 percent, down from 64 percent in 1994. ... [More]

The U.N. Human Rights Council adopted a “defamation of religions” resolution on Thursday, ignoring a mass petition signed by over 180 non-government organizations from more than 50 different countries. ... [More]

Texas Board of Education handed science a mixed bag of victory and defeat with their Friday vote on state science standards. Although they voted to not include the "strengths and weaknesses" creationist code words, they added amendments that provide major loopholes for creationist teaching. ... [More]

Tensions over how evolution is taught simmered Wednesday as the State Board of Education held the final hearing in the process of adopting new classroom science curriculum standards. Activists took advantage of the last opportunity to testify on the proposed standards, which would drop a 20-year-old rule that requires "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories to be taught. ... [More]

Some 200 secular, religious and media groups from around the world on Wednesday urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to reject a call from Islamic countries for a global fight against "defamation of religion." ... [More]

Antiabortion group and conservative catholics, including her bishop, have opposed Sebelius's nomination to the Department of Health and Human Services, but she seems to be faring better than John Kerry did in 2004 when he was attacked by the same forces. ... [More]

Dentist Don McLeroy is chairman of the Texas State Board of Education and he is leading the fight against Texas' science curriculum. A "young earth" creationist, McLeroy believes that the earth is between 6000 and 10,000 years old. He wants Texas school children to be taught that natural selection cannot explain the complexity of cells. ... [More]

Program serves mainly to funnel tax money to religious schools and has not raised student achievement, watchdog group says ... [More]

The New School For Social Research just concluded a conference on the Religious/Secular Divide in the United States. The Conference was held for two days, 3/5-6, to standing room only crowds at the Tishman Auditorium in New York City. ... [More]

Watchdog Group says Washington, D.C. program forces taxpayers to fund religious schools and diverts attention arom public school improvement -- calls on the Senate to reject Sen. John Ensign's proposal to extend Washington, D.C.'s private school voucher plan. ... [More]

It is truly dismaying that amid all the discussion about President Obama’s version of faith-based community initiatives, there has been such a widespread reluctance to question the basic assumption that government can spend money on religiously based enterprises without violating the First Amendment. ... [More]

A new nationwide study of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states. ... However, ... states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds. ... [More]

Unprecedented in recent history, Obama's practice of opening presidential events with a prayer seems like it will become a new tradition, further eroding the boundaries between church and state. ... [More]

Watchdog group says federal parks should not be used to display religious symbols -- Defense Department's land transfer scheme does not legitimize its violation of church-state separation ... [More]