Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College do not meet the criteria, and therefore, filed a joint lawsuit challenging the mandate. The suit was dismissed, because the administration has promised to address the religious liberty problem sometime in 2013. Wheaton and Belmont have appealed because there is no guarantee that the schools will be able to …
A state may avoid RLUIPA’s requirements by not taking federal funding for prisons, or by demonstrating it has a compelling interest, such as prison security, that justifies a denial of a specific prisoner’s religious request. In this case, prison officials claimed that providing kosher meals to Jewish prisoners was too costly and would jeopardize security. …
“Individuals have the right to decide whether or not to ‘eat mor chikin.’ But no government leader should restrict a business or organization from expanding to their district based on the personal or political views of the owners,” said NAE President Leith Anderson. “Such evident discrimination and attempts to marginalize those with religious values have …
The National Association of Evangelicals, representing 40 denominations with approximately 45,000 congregations, as well as schools, missions, humanitarian organizations and other groups with a constituency of millions, submits these comments in response to the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR). While the ANPR asks various questions about the feasibility of implementing accommodations for religious organizations …
Dear Secretary Sebelius: As leaders and supporters of faith based service organizations, we write to express our grave concern about the two-class concept of religious organizations that has been created by your department and other federal agencies in connection with contraceptives/abortifacients mandate of the health insurance regulations for preventive services for women. Our organizations, and …
Religious freedom is “both historically and logically at the foundation of the American experiment…Because human beings are responsible to God, these [first amendment] guarantees are crucial to the exercise of their God-given freedom.” The NAE makes clear in “For the Health of the Nation” that evangelicals promote and defend religious freedom not only for ourselves, …
We respectfully ask President Obama to reconsider the plan to issue a new rule creating a group of religious organizations afforded accommodations, but not protection. We ask the President instead to amend the current exemption to include any objecting nonprofit organization that holds itself out to the public as religious and that engages in religious, …
This debate is not about contraception. More than 90 percent of evangelicals, including evangelical leaders, support responsible use of contraception. Most evangelicals also support making contraceptive services available through health insurance plans, where plan sponsors do not object on religious grounds. Where plan sponsors do object to providing particular products or services, plans would be …
Under the rule, a “religious employer” is defined as an entity that is registered as a church or association of churches, hires mainly its own people, serves mainly its own people, and exists mainly to inculcate religious values. “No other federal law or regulation leaves such a broad range of religious organizations unprotected,” said Galen …
