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Religious Liberty blog
'You can't legislate morality' is wrong on its face, and here is whyEvery law enforces a moral judgment. The real questions are what reasons support it, what rights limit it and who answers for it. Here is the case.Do churches pay taxes? Eleven questions about churches and the tax manStraight answers on church property and income tax, the Johnson Amendment, the parsonage allowance, Form 990, IRS audits and the best case against exemption.How Evangelical Voters Became Republican Voters Between 1976 and 1984Evangelicals split their votes in 1976 and voted Republican by 1984; here is the history of schools, Roe, the Moral Majority and Reagan that explains the shift.From Charitable Choice to the faith-based office, when churches got a seatHow a 1996 provision and a 2001 executive order told Washington it could not turn away a soup kitchen for having a steeple, and what critics on both sides say.School Prayer, Bibles and the Ten Commandments, Eleven Questions AnsweredGod was never banned from school. Eleven questions on prayer, Bibles, clubs and the Ten Commandments, answered with the cases and what students may do.The College That Turned Down Washington's Money and What It Teaches UsHillsdale College refused to sign a federal form in the 1970s, then refused the money. What Grove City v. Bell and South Dakota v. Dole say about the strings.The Blaine Amendments and the Century-Old Fight Over Religious SchoolsHow an 1875 attack on Catholic schools became a clause in state constitutions, and how three Supreme Court cases finally pushed it back.West Virginia v. Barnette and the Flag Case That Protects Every ParentHow the Supreme Court reversed itself in three years and ruled that no school can force a child to salute, and why that protects conservative families too.How to ask for your Sabbath at work and what Groff v. DeJoy changedA step-by-step playbook for asking an employer for a religious accommodation, and what the Supreme Court's unanimous 2023 ruling in Groff v. DeJoy changed.Seven claims about God and the founding, tested against the recordBoth the secular left and the religious right overstate the founders' faith, so here are seven popular claims tested against the documents, with a verdict.Article VI, the atheist notary and the clause every believer should defendThe ban on religious tests for office took shape in 1787 and reached the states in Torcaso v. Watkins, and believers have the most to lose if it fails.What the 9-0 Fulton decision means for foster care and faith agenciesFulton v. City of Philadelphia was a unanimous win for a Catholic foster agency, and the narrow reasoning behind it matters as much as the result.Where Rights Come From, and Why the Declaration Says So FirstThe Declaration treats rights as older than government, and that is the practical difference between a right and a permission slip.Five cases that ended America's religious penalty in school aidFive Supreme Court rulings from 2002 to 2022 took apart the rule that a family loses public school aid the moment a religious school is in the picture.A baker, a web designer and the line between customers and messagesA business open to the public must serve everyone, say critics. The answer turns on whether the law compels a person's service or a person's message.Why the government cannot tell a church who its ministers areThe ministerial exception comes from both religion clauses. Two unanimous-to-lopsided rulings, 2012 and 2020, explain who counts and why the rule has limits.From Hobby Lobby to the Little Sisters, the long fight over one mandateOne federal rule sent religious employers to the Supreme Court three times because each fix still left them feeling complicit. A dated timeline, 2010 to 2020.How 97 senators and a voice vote undid a Supreme Court decisionAfter Employment Division v. Smith, an odd coalition asked Congress to restore the old religious-freedom test, and the 1993 RFRA passed 97-3 and by voice vote.The Blaine Amendments and the Old Bigotry Still Sitting in State ConstitutionsThe 1875 federal amendment that failed, the state clauses it inspired, the anti-Catholic politics behind them, and how the Supreme Court has narrowed them.Two Ten Commandments cases on one day, opposite results, and the reasonOn June 27, 2005 the Court struck one Decalogue display and upheld another, both 5-4. The table shows what a county or school board can lawfully do.The three-part test that haunted churches for fifty years is finally goneThe Lemon test gave courts three prongs and decades of contradictory results. Here is how it died, what replaced it, and the best objection to the replacement.Five school-day situations and what the prayer rulings really decideThe 1962 and 1963 prayer rulings barred school-sponsored devotion, not a child's prayer. Five labelled hypotheticals show where the line actually runs.Where 'a wall of separation' really comes from and what it was built forThe phrase comes from a short 1802 letter to a Baptist minority, and it never meant scrubbing faith out of public life. Here is the paper trail.Baptists, Madison and the Virginia fight that put religious liberty firstReligious liberty was won by dissenting believers and Enlightenment statesmen who agreed that forced worship makes neither true faith nor good government.