FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Citizens Police Review Board has decided that a Florida police officer should receive a letter of reprimand for marking “male” on a traffic ticket when the driver identified as a woman. The board also recommended that the entire police department receive transgender sensitivity training. According to reports, in January, Officer James Brinton […]
SALEM, Ore. — A prominent professing atheist organization is seeking the removal of roadside cross memorial in Oregon, which it states is an unconstitutional government endorsement of Christianity because it sits on public property. The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) recently sent a letter to the mayor of Salem to advise that it had received […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis has pushed back the date on when transgenders will be formally permitted to enlist in the military, stating that the matter needs further consideration. As previously reported, former Defense Secretary Ash Carter lifted the ban on open transgenders last year and set July 1 as the deadline for the […]
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A worship leader in North Carolina who lost both of his sons two years ago in a car crash welcomed twin boys with his wife on Monday. Gentry Eddings of Forest Lake Church in Ballantyne and his wife Hadley named their newborn sons Isaiah Dobbs and Amos Reed in honor of their […]
ONTARIO — A landlord in Canada is expressing dismay after he was recently ordered by a human rights tribunal to pay $12,000 to a Muslim couple for disrespecting their religion, in part for failing to remove his shoes in their bedroom, which was used as their Islamic prayer space. “I was humiliated. I was made to […]
YORK, U.K. — The Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church, has voted overwhelmingly to “welcome and affirm” transgendered persons, and might now also offer special liturgies to mark the person’s “transition” and accept them in their new perceived identity. According to the denomination’s website, the General Synod voted on Sunday to approve a motion […]
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – A prominent atheist group is demanding that a fire department in Georgia take down a cross that has stood outside of one of their fire stations for more than a decade. Catoosa County Fire Department serves a district in far northwestern Georgia, just across the state line from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Outside of […]
DELTONA, Fla. — A city commissioner in Florida has refused a prominent church-state separation group’s request to stop reading Bible verses at the conclusion of public meetings. Deltona Commissioner Christopher Alcantara recently sent a brief and blunt response to Americans United for Separation of Church and State after receiving a letter asserting that his Bible-reading […]
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A KKK rally in Virginia was met with a swelling protest on Saturday. An estimated 50 Klan members gathered in Charlottesville to express objection to the city council’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Lee Park, which has now been renamed Emancipation Park. The statue has stood […]
The popular arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby has agreed to forfeit over 5,500 ancient artifacts and pay $3 million in a civil settlement after the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint asserting that the items had been illegally shipped into the country from a dealer in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The company denies any intentional […]