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    Stimulus Package Stimulates Church-State Debate

    The economic stimulus legislation signed into law on Feb. 17, 2009, by President Barack Obama authorizes state governments to fund the “modernization, renovation and repair” of buildings on public and private college and university campuses. But the provision prevents these schools from using this funding to improve buildings that are “used for sectarian instruction or […]

  • report

    Overview: The Conflict Between Religion and Evolution

    Updated February 3, 2014 Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Americans are still fighting over evolution. If anything, the controversy has grown in both size and intensity. In the last decade, debates over how evolution should be taught in schools have […]

  • fact sheet

    The Social and Legal Dimensions of the Evolution Debate in the U.S.

    Updated February 3, 2014 As with many social and political controversies in the United States, the battle over evolution has been largely fought in courtrooms. This has been particularly true in the last 50 years, as courts have been repeatedly asked to rule on efforts to restrict or change the way public schools teach about evolution […]

  • report

    Fighting Over Darwin, State by State

    Updated February 3, 2014 The debate over whether and how to teach public school students about evolution may be an old one, but it shows no signs of abating. Indeed, in the last decade, questions about what students should learn about Darwin’s theory have been debated in more than half the states in the union […]

  • report

    Evolution and Religion Research Package

    A Pew Forum research package gives an overview of the debate, examines its social and legal dimensions and reviews the life and ideas of Charles Darwin. ANALYSIS Updated February 3, 2014 Overview: The Conflict Between Religion and Evolution Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking work On the Origin of Species by Means […]

  • fact sheet

    Hiring Law for Groups Following a Higher Law: Faith-Based Hiring and the Obama Administration

    During his 2008 presidential campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama said that he intended to overturn President George W. Bush’s policy of allowing faith-based groups that receive federal funding to consider a potential employee’s religion when making hiring decisions. Although a 1972 civil rights law generally exempts religious groups from the prohibition on religious discrimination in hiring, […]

  • feature

    Faith-Based Aid Favored – With Reservations

    A 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life found that while Americans generally support allowing religious groups to apply for government funding to provide social services, they draw the line at letting such organizations hire only people who […]

  • report

    Faith on the Hill: 2008

    Members of Congress are often accused of being out of touch with average citizens, but an examination of the religious affiliations of U.S. senators and representatives shows that, on one very basic level, Congress looks much like the rest of the country. Although a majority of the members of the new, 111th Congress, which will […]

  • report

    Breaking Barriers: Congressman Dalip Singh Saund

    Born near Amritsar, India in 1899, Dalip Singh Saund was an unlikely future candidate for national office when he came to the United States in 1920 to study food preservation at the University of California, Berkeley. But in 1956 Saund, whose career would span the vocations of mathematician, farmer, author, activist and judge, became the […]

  • fact sheet

    In Brief: Pleasant Grove City v. Summum

    On Nov. 12, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, a case that could change how public parks display religious messages such as the Ten Commandments. The Pew Forum provides a brief overview of how the case progressed to the Supreme Court and how the two sides […]

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