Category: Church and State

The ‘Christian Right’ has been a major power broker in U.S. politics for 30 years, having played especially important roles in the 1980, 1994 and 2004 presidential elections, and in Republican administrations since the tenure of former President Ronald Reagan.

It appeared at its apex after the 2004 ‘values vote’ election, but now seems on the decline under President Barack Obama. The Christian Right has no clear leader or central movement organization to guide it, and many younger evangelicals are turning away from their parents’ emphasis on a narrow set of contentious social issues.

Nevertheless, it remains a powerful political force capable of resurgence, Forbes writes.

Christian Right organizations are experiencing increased contributions and activism, as Obama and a Democratic Congress push socially progressive legislation.

A couple thousand people gathered outside the Capitol in Sacramento this afternoon to rally for the legalization of same-sex marriages just days after voters imposed a constitutional ban.

The gathering follows several similar events around the Bay Area and California. Earlier today, more than 400 people gathered outside the distinctive Mormon Temple in Oakland to protest the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints‘ support of Proposition 8.

Ignorance is the enemy of liberty. That truth has never been so forcefully made as it has been with the rescue of the hundreds of children from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints compound in Eldorado, Texas. As the clergy abuse crisis within the Roman Catholic Church has proved, Americans are all too willing to ignore evidence of child abuse when it occurs in the context of religious organizations.

The inquiry into the Buena Park pastor’s actions comes six months after Americans United for Separation of Church and State urged the IRS to investigate the nonprofit status of Drake’s church because of the endorsement.

The justices decided not to consider a challenge by religious groups to a New York law requiring health plans to cover birth control pills, and a California case in which an evangelical group was denied use of a public library for religious services.

The Internal Revenue Service has told a prominent Pasadena church that it has ended its lengthy investigation into a 2004 antiwar sermon, church leaders said Sunday. But the agency wrote in its letter to All Saints Episcopal Church that officials still considered the sermon to have been illegal, prompting the church to seek clarification, a corrected record and an apology from the IRS, the church’s rector told standing-room-only crowds of parishioners at Sunday’s services.

You won’t find these Arizona religious groups in any neighborhood directory of churches. They don’t have temples. They don’t hold services. Instead, state and federal authorities say they are individually owned corporations, called corporations sole, that were set up to dodge income taxes. Promoters of the schemes rake in large fees and, in one case, used them as part of a pyramid scheme, authorities say.