Home : Religion and Belief : General

> Blog: A Christmas Carol from the ACLU

ACLU Cases Defending Religious Freedom The ACLU and Freedom of Religion and Belief CASES > Case: Moreno v. Ector County School Board > Victory: The Challenge to Intelligent Design > Litigation: The Mt. Soledad Cross LEARN MORE > Christmas and the ACLU > USA Today: A Fictional 'War on Christmas' > How the ACLU Didn't Steal Christmas AUDIO FROM THE 2006 MEMBERSHIP CONFERENCE > Program Director Jeremy Gunn > ACLU Legal Director Steve Shapiro > ACLU of Pennsylvania Attorney Vic Walczak

The right of each and every American to practice his or her own religion (or no religion at all), is among the most fundamental of the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The American Civil Liberties Union’s long history of working to ensure that religious liberty is protected goes as far back as the Scopes trial of 1925. Long before other groups appeared on the scene to argue for religious freedom, the ACLU was arguing on behalf of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ right not to be compelled against their beliefs to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (as an amicus in the famous West Virginia v. Barnette case of 1943). The ACLU has been involved in a long series of prominent cases – under both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause – that have argued against government interference in the religious sphere, including, e.g., Engel v. Vitale (1962), Abington v. Schempp (1963), Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), Allegheny County v. ACLU (1989), Employment Division v. Smith (1990), Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000), and ACLU of Kentucky v. McCreary (2005). More recently the ACLU of Pennsylvania, with Americans United, successfully challenged the Dover, Pennsylvania, attempt to promote so-called “intelligent design” in public schools.

The ACLU launched its new Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief in 2005 to coordinate the broad range of issues coming under the rubric of religion. The Program now has five staff members, including three experienced attorneys, who work to promote and safeguard constitutionally protected freedoms of religion and belief through First Amendment litigation, public education, and community outreach.
Learn More >>

Judge Awards ACLU Fees For Lawsuit Over Jesus Picture In The Courthouse (07/23/2008)
NEW ORLEANS- Yesterday, a federal District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana awarded the American Civil Liberties Union $42,000 in attorneys' fees in a case they brought challenging the legality of a picture of Jesus Christ that was displayed at the Slidell City Courthouse.

ACLU Calls For End To Mandatory Prayer At U.S. Naval Academy (06/25/2008)
BALTIMORE – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Maryland are urging the U.S. Naval Academy to stop forcing midshipmen to participate in the Academy's compulsory "noon meal prayers."

Judge Orders Children Returned To Their Families (06/02/2008)
AUSTIN, TX - Judge Barbara Walther ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services today to return more than 400 children removed from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas to their families. The order follows a Texas Supreme Court decision last week holding that Judge Walther erred when she initially granted the state temporary custody of the children without requiring the state first to submit, in accordance with Texas law, evidence of a continuing threat of physical harm to the children.

ACLU Urges Court to Correct Constitutional Errors (05/30/2008)
AUSTIN -- The ACLU is encouraged by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther’s scheduling of a hearing for 2 p.m. today to address yesterday's Texas Supreme Court decision that the state's removal of over 400 children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch (YFZ) in Eldorado was unwarranted. The Supreme Court decision let stand an appellate ruling that Judge Walther must vacate her order granting custody of all of the YFZ children to the Department of Family and Protective Services.

ACLU Submits Brief In Texas FLDS Case Saying State Can't Separate Families Based Solely On Beliefs (05/29/2008)
AUSTIN, TX -- The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Texas today submitted a friend of the court brief with the Texas Supreme Court opposing a petition from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (TDFPS) to retain custody of the children of 38 mothers from the Yearning For Zion Ranch (YFZ) in Eldorado, Texas.

In re Texas Department of Family & Protective Services - Brief Of Amici Curiae In Opposition To Relator's Petition For Mandamus (05/29/2008)

Jason and Jennifer O'Neill Compalint for Declartory Judgement to Confirm the Validity of Their Marriage (02/26/2008)

February 27, 2007 ACLU of Virginia Letter to Governor Kaine (02/27/2007)
February 27, 2007 ACLU of Virginia Letter to Governor Kaine

Complaint in Stanley v West Virginia (09/19/2006)

ACLU of North Carolina Letter to AOC (07/11/2005)

Coalition Sign-On Letter Opposing the Workplace Religious Freedom Act (05/15/2008)

Coalition Letter to Senate regarding "Creation Science" Earmark (10/10/2007)
Dear Senator: We, the undersigned religious, civil rights, education, science, and advocacy organizations write to urge you to remove an earmark from the Fiscal Year 2008 Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriation Bill’s Committee Report. The Fund for Improvement of Education, under Title III, contains an earmark for uses that, if funded, would be blatantly unconstitutional. The earmark would fund curriculum that promotes teaching creationism in the science classroom, even though uniformly prohibited by federal courts.

SUPPORT BIPARTISAN REAUTHORIZATION OF HEAD START BY OPPOSING ANY ATTEMPT TO REPEAL THIRTY-FIVE YEAR OLD CIVIL RIGHTS PROVISION (04/20/2007)
We, the undersigned religious, civil rights, labor, education, health, and advocacy organizations urge you to support H.R. 1429, bipartisan legislation that would reauthorize the Head Start program, and to oppose any attempt to repeal longstanding critical civil rights protections. As reported out of the House Committee on Education and Labor on a 42-1 bipartisan vote, H.R. 1429 keeps in place a 35-year old civil rights provision that protects over 213,000 Head Start teachers and staff and over 1,360,000 parent volunteers from employment discrimination based on religion in federally-funded positions in Head Start programs.

Oppose Any Attempt to Repeal Longstanding Civil Rights Protections in Head Start (04/19/2007)
On behalf of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the nation’s oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition, with more than 190 member organizations, we urge you to support H.R. 1429, the Improving Head Start Act of 2007, and oppose any attempt on the House floor to repeal longstanding civil rights protections in the Head Start Program that have been in place since President Nixon signed the law in 1972. We strongly oppose any language that would allow federally funded employment discrimination.* If language repealing civil rights protections is added to the bill either during consideration on the House floor or in the Motion to Recommit, we urge you to oppose final passage of the bill.

Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty Letter Urging Opposition to the "Public Expression of Religion Act" (09/05/2006)

ACLU Statement On Texas Appellate Court Decision Regarding Yearning For Zion Ranch (05/22/2008)

ACLU Statement On The Government's Actions Regarding The Yearning For Zion Ranch In Eldorado, Texas (05/02/2008)

ACLU of Maryland Letter to Vice Admiral Jeffrey L. Fowler, United States Naval Academy (05/02/2008)

Christmas and the ACLU (12/13/2007)

Letter from Jeremy Gunn to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (07/24/2007)

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held a hearing on June 1, 2007, entitled "The Blaine Amendments and Anti-Catholicism." The ACLU sent a letter to the Commission arguing that although opponents of the so-called "Blaine amendments" (state laws prohibiting government funding of religious education) misleadingly raise the specter of anti-Catholic bias as a reason for repeal, opponents are not able to cite any examples during the last one hundred years where laws have in fact relied on Blaine amendments to justify anti-Catholic bias. Thus "anti-Catholic bias" is a pretext to disguise the real reason opponents want to repeal the Blaine amendments. They want to use taxpayer dollars to pay for religious activities. The Commission's statutory mandate is to focus on discrimination, not to seek pretexts to promote taxpayer funding of religious education.

Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation (02/02/2007)
Reviewing a challenge to a Supreme Court ruling that, for forty years, has allowed taxpayers to seek a federal court injunction against government expenditures in violation of the Establishment Clause. DECIDED