Category: Frontlines

SIDE/LINES Atheists: Fear Them — Researchers conducting the three-year American Mosaic Project are surveying Americans’ attitudes toward race and religion. Among many other questions, participants were asked what religious group was the most threatening or dangerous. Fifty-four percent answered “Atheists.” Maybe white, conservative Christians dominated the pool: that group revealed the most antipathy toward diversity, …

SIDE/LINES Religion No Guarantee Against Reneging—Oklahoma’s KXOK Televison is taking a well-known area preacher to court for nonpayment on his program contract. Dr. Gene Scott and his University Network of California had agreed to purchase time for broadcasting programs for two years. Station owner Rex Faulkner says payments stopped after six months without notice. Faulkner …

Now we Get It Democrats searching for explanations for their disappointing results in the November 2002 elections should be talking to the Christian Coalition of America. It is taking credit for the Republican successes. CCA President Roberta Combs issued a press release in celebration, saying her group was able to “train, register, educate, and mobilize …

SIDE/LINES We Don’t Think So— In early May, New Hampshire lost its state symbol, and main tourist attraction, when the rock formation known as the Old Man of the Mountain crumbled and fell. Experts had predicted such a fate would befall the 700-ton, 40-foot-high stone profile as part of the natural cycle of freezing and …

SIDE / LINES There Are Limits—Not all those who wish to read from the Bible are welcome at West Virginia’s Shepherd College. When forty-nine-year-old Barbara Marie Harm ison wanted to do just that, campus police told her she needed permission from the student affairs department. She may have forgot to tell them she planned to …

High Court Crushes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act In 1990, in Employment Division v. Smith, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that government bodies no longer had to show a compelling reason for refusing to allow an exemption for religious practices that violate laws applicable to everyone else. Smith involved a member of an American Indian …

Hale-Bopp and Heaven’s Gate In early 1996, the astronomer Alan Hale submitted an article to FREE INQUIRY dealing with the comet he had recently co-discovered with Thomas Bopp. Although there was no way to be sure at that time if the comet would be as spectacular as it proved to be, Hale felt that there …