Tag: religion

Copyright Is Not a Tool to Silence Critics of Religious Education

Copyright law is not a tool to punish or silence critics. This is a principle so fundamental that it is the ur-example of fair use, which typically allows copying another’s creative work when necessary for criticism. But sometimes, unscrupulous rightsholders misuse copyright law to bully critics into silence by filing meritless lawsuits, threatening potentially enormous personal liability unless they cease speaking out. That’s why EFF is defending Zachary Parrish, a parent in Indiana, against a copyright infringement suit by LifeWise, Inc.

LifeWise produces controversial “released time” religious education programs for public elementary school students during school hours. After encountering the program at his daughter’s public school, Mr. Parrish co-founded “Parents Against LifeWise,” a group that strives to educate and warn others about the harms they believe LifeWise’s programs cause. To help other parents make fully informed decisions about signing their children up for a LifeWise program, Mr. Parrish obtained a copy of LifeWise’s elementary school curriculum—which the organization kept secret from everyone except instructors and enrolled students—and posted it to the Parents Against LifeWise website. LifeWise sent a copyright takedown to the website’s hosting provider to get the curriculum taken down, and followed up with an infringement lawsuit against Mr. Parrish.

EFF filed a motion to dismiss LifeWise’s baseless attempt to silence Mr. Parrish. As we explained to the court, Mr. Parrish’s posting of the curriculum was a paradigmatic example of fair use, an important doctrine that allows critics like Mr. Parrish to comment on, criticize, and educate others on the contents of a copyrighted work. LifeWise’s own legal complaint shows why Mr. Parrish’s use was fair: “his goal was to gather information and internal documents with the hope of publishing information online which might harm LifeWise’s reputation and galvanize parents to oppose local LifeWise Academy chapters in their communities.” This is a mission of public advocacy and education that copyright law protects. In addition, Mr. Parrish’s purpose was noncommercial: far from seeking to replace or compete with LifeWise, he posted the curriculum to encourage others to think carefully before signing their children up for the program. And posting the curriculum doesn’t harm LifeWise—at least not in any way that copyright law was meant to address. Just like copyright doesn’t stop a film critic from using scenes from a movie as part of a devastating review, it doesn’t stop a concerned parent from educating other parents about a controversial religious school program by showing them the actual content of that program.

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U.S. to Spend Record $454M Securing ‘Mostly Jewish Institutions’

The US will spend a record $454 million this year to secure religious organizations, with the majority of the funds going to Jewish institutions and a minority being given to other religious groups, the Times of Israel reports.

From The Times of Israel, “US to spend record $454 million securing religious institutions as antisemitism spikes”:

The US federal government will spend nearly $150 million more this year than it did in 2023 to secure religious organizations, a jump aimed at addressing a rise in antisemitism since October 7.

The Department of Homeland Security announced last week that it had allocated $454.5 million this fiscal year toward the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which funds security enhancements at houses of worship and religious organizations. It is the largest sum ever allocated toward the program, and a significant increase from last year’s figure of $305 million.

“The funds announced today will provide communities across the country with vital resources necessary to strengthen their security and guard against terrorism and other threats,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who is Jewish, said in a statement. “The impact of these grants will be measured in lives saved and tragedies averted.”

Jewish organizations have historically championed the program, which began in 2005 with an allocation of $25 million and has since grown exponentially. Most of the funding has historically gone to Jewish institutions such as synagogues, day schools, and other religious organizations — a trend that continued this year, according to the Orthodox Union.

The funds are available to all denominations facing credible threats, and in recent years Muslim and Black Christian institutions have applied for funds, often with the guidance of Jewish groups more experienced in the application process.

In related news, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has already spent over $100 million this election cycle.

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‘Totalitarian and Unconstitutional’: Tim Walz Ban on Christian Teachers Set to Hit Schools in Just Months

Gov. Tim Walz’s ban on faithful Christians from teaching in Minnesota’s public is set to hit the state’s schools in just months.

It also bans adherent Jews and Muslims.

And a report at the Federalist warns that he is “poised to make similar bigoted, totalitarian and unconstitutional policies” for the entire nation, “should he be elected vice president.”

The report from the publication’s executive editor, Joy Pullmann, explains the state has new teacher licensing rules that will take effect in July 2025, and they will “ban practicing Christians, Jews, and Muslims from teaching in public schools.”

It’s because under the plans of the leftist governor, the state will demand that teacher license applicants “affirm transgenderism and race Marxism.”

No license? No job for anyone to teach in the state’s public schools. Or private schools if they require that certification.

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Diversity Is A False Religion To Destroy America

This week, the National Association of Scholars (“NAS”) and the Heritage Foundation are sponsoring a panel discussion on diversity ideology in higher education. A number of reports have recently been published on the topic, with most documenting monies spent by state universities on “diversity, equity and inclusion” (“DEI“). The Maryland affiliate of the National Association of Scholars released the most recent such report this summer, but the Virginia affiliate issued one last year, while Idaho, North Carolina, Maine, and Tennessee produced similar documents before that.

The Maryland report reminds state officials that “diversity” is usually a cover for race-based practices that are now likely illegal under the 2023 United States Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (or “SFFA”). That opinion found that racial preferences in university admissions were a violation of federal civil rights laws and also the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. SFFA means that any race-based practice in college is presumptively unlawful. As the Court said, “Eliminating discrimination means eliminating all of it … distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their nature odious.”

Virginia’s report is similar to the others with its focus on money, asking Should Virginians Pay for University “Diversity” Leftism? It found that DEI expenditures at Virginia’s state universities have exploded with the University of Virginia (UVA) probably the worst offender. In 2020, for example, UVA spent $4,149,732 on DEI programs with 38 DEI administrators; but within one year, both those figures had nearly doubled. In 2021, UVA spent $6,924,279 on DEI and had 77 DEI administrators. Incredibly, more recent findings show that UVA’s DEI expenditures have skyrocketed even more, with over $20 million spent in 2023 including for 235 DEI employees.

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Zelensky Officially Bans The Ukrainian Orthodox Church

The Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, has adopted a law allowing a ban on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The law was backed by 265 MPs with 226 needed for a majority.

The chairman of the Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk, said that as a result of the adoption of this law, the UOC “will be prohibited”, and that “the bill provides for its immediate ban.” The law is expected to come into force 30 days after its publication. The move is the latest example of the outright disdain for democratic values and the freedom of religion exemplified by the regime of Ukraine’s unelected leader Volodomir Zelensky.

The bill was drafted on direct instructions from Zelensky. It passed a first reading in the Rada in October 2023, but a second reading was delayed due to fears that it would not have enough votes from MPs and that it would cause discontent in the West. On 16 August 2024, final amendments to the document were made, giving it a new Orwellian name, “For the protection of constitutional order in the field of religious organizations.”

The new state sponsored church organized by the Ukrainian regime had forcibly taken over the churches of the UOC, as well as those of ethnic minorities, and attacked priests. Local authorities deprived the canonical church of the right to lease land to churches. The Security Service of Ukraine, as of November 2023 admitted that authorities have opened 70 criminal cases against the clergy of the UOC, 19 of which resulted in convictions and stripping the clergy of citizenship, something unheard of in the civilized world.

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Ukraine’s Two Wars

As the Russia–Ukraine conflict continues well into its third year, we naturally focus on the military struggle. A less visible but equally important battle is being waged within Ukraine’s religious communities. This conflict reveals the complex interplay between faith, nationalism, state power, and the ongoing war. 

Ukraine has historically been at the center of the Eastern European Orthodox world. It is on the banks of the Dnieper River in Kyiv that Eastern European Orthodoxy was born in 988 as a Slavic offshoot of Byzantium’s Greek Orthodoxy. It adopted Slavonic, a proto-Slavic tongue, as its liturgical language—a language the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the largest religious organization in the country, still uses. 

In 2019, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was founded in accordance with then President Petro Poroshenko’s “one nation, one church” vision. Poroshenko believed that an independent, national church was essential for national security, as opposed to the traditional UOC church, which was independent in governance but retained its legacy ecclesiastic connection with the Russian Orthodox Church based in Moscow. One way that the OCU displayed its nationalism was by replacing Slavonic with Ukrainian as its liturgical language. 

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian government announced a series of measures identifying the UOC  with the Russian Orthodox Church and seeking repressive measures against it. On December 2, 2022, during his nightly address President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a decree that banned the activities of religious organizations “affiliated with centers of influence” in Russia and said that state services would examine the links between the UOC and the Russian church. 

If you were a Ukrainian patriot, President Zelensky signaled, the UOC could not possibly be your spiritual home. 

Shortly after Zelensky’s speech, I attended liturgy at the Russian church in Geneva, where I was visiting, hoping to better understand the overlay of the war and religious identity. There, I met both Russians and Ukrainians, including Ukrainians from the Russian-speaking east and ethnic Ukrainians from the west. I met a veteran of the Ukrainian special forces, the SBU, who shared that he fought in the Donbas in 2014 and later went to Russia on a spiritual visit. He was highly critical of what he claimed was the persecution by the Ukrainian government of his church at home, the UOC. Clearly, there was more to it than President Zelensky’s narrative portraying the UOC as a political fifth column—a narrative echoed by the media in Europe and the United States.  

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Report: Tim Walz Praised Hitler-Supporting Imam as ‘Master Teacher,’ Contradicting Campaign

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz praised radical Imam Asad Zaman, who had posted content promoting Hitler, as a “master teacher” — contradicting claims by the Kamala Harris campaign that Walz had no personal relationship with him.

As Breitbart News noted last week, citing reporting by Gabe Kaminsky in the Washington Examiner, Walz “appeared several times with a local Muslim leader who has justified Hamas terrorist violence against Israel and once shared a pro-Hitler film on social media.” Walz’s Muslim American Society of Minnesota also received grants from the state.

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UK Government Set to Ban Silent Prayer Outside Abortion Clinics

As the crackdown on free speech accelerates, the UK government is set to ban people silently praying in their heads outside abortion clinics.

MPs voted for legislation last year that would ban silent prayer within ‘buffer zones’ 150 metres around the location of a clinic or hospital providing abortion services.

However, this has not come come into force and guidance was subsequently published allowing silent prayer within ‘safe access zones’ where activists would be able to hand out leaflets and engage in conversations with women considering abortions.

The guidance stated that, “Silent prayer, being the engagement of the mind and thought in prayer towards God, is protected as an absolute right under the Human Rights Act 1998 and should not, on its own, be considered to be an offence under any circumstances.”

The issue shot to public attention in March 2023 when campaigner Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested by police for silently praying in front of a British Pregnancy Advisory Services clinic that was subject to a ‘buffer zone’ order.

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61-Year-Old Brit Gets 18 Month Prison Sentence For Chanting “Who The F**k Is Allah”

A 61-year-old man in the UK was jailed for 18 months for chanting “who the fuck is Allah” and telling police officers “you’re not English anymore” during a protest outside Downing Street.

Yes really.

The sentence handed out to David Spring is the latest shocking example of how low the bar has now been set in terms of free speech in response to rioting that occurred after the murder of three girls in Southport last month.

Spring attended a demonstration of around 700 people in London on July 31 which turned disorderly.

Police bodycam footage that was played in court showed Spring calling police officers “cunts,” making “hostile gestures” and joining in with chants of “who the fuck is Allah” and “you’re not English anymore.”

While Spring’s behavior could be described as offensive and unruly, the fact that he will spend the next year and a half behind bars for saying mean words exemplifies how the UK has slipped into extreme authoritarianism in the space of just two weeks.

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Former Mormon reveals how she was trained to be the ‘perfect trad wife’ from age 12

An ex-Mormon has lifted the lid on the unusual lessons she was taught at the church when she was just 12 years old so that she could be the ‘perfect’ stay-at-home wife.

Alyssa Grenfell, 31, grew up in an ultra-strict household but fled from Utah to New York in 2017 – and has since been focusing on reclaiming her body following the move in her late 20s.

The former member of the Mormon church has recently been sharing tidbits about her transformation and her journey to freedom.

Most recently, she took to YouTube to unveil the various teachings that were told to the children of the Mormon church – adding that they were prepped to become wives from a very early age.

She admitted that she was forced to learn how to cook, clean and sew – while also being forced to remain abstinent. 

Alyssa captioned the video: ‘Brainwashed Mormon Mommies?’ 

In it, she discussed the rise of ‘trad wives’ – a term used to describe women who choose to live a tradition lifestyle that seems them spending their days cooking, cleaning, wearing modest clothing, and being submissive to their husbands. 

Trad wives have become increasingly visible in recent months as many women boast about reverting to the traditional roles of housewives, largely practiced in the fifties and sixties.

‘I was trained to be a wife and mother when I was about 12,’ Alyssa said at the beginning of the video. 

She then explained that the women within the community were forced to learn how to become the perfect wife – beginning with cooking. 

Alyssa noted that as women they were taught to make spaghetti and told to serve it to the boys. 

She explained: ‘This is the bread and butter of what I was raised on. It reminds me of how many different times I would go to young women’s activities and the boys would be playing basketball and having a great time and the young women would be learning a skill like cooking or sewing. 

‘I have one distinct memory where we learned to plan a meal and we made spaghetti and the boys were playing basketball.

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