Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty

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SOLID, RELIABLE, CONFIDENT â€” these are three words that describe the Baptist Joint Committee as we carry out our work every day on Capitol Hill.

From the halls of Congress, to the agencies and in the courts, the BJC works to defend and extend God-given religious liberty for all people.

With its guarantees of our most fundamental freedoms, the First Amendment must be defended if we are to preserve religious liberty for everyone. Our challenge is great, but we are determined to meet it.

For more than 70 years, the BJC has sounded the alarm and fought the battles from our office on Capitol Hill. We are the only religious organization in the country that works solely on religious liberty issues.

As always, we need your financial support to continue to wage the fight for religious liberty.

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Baptist Joint Committee announces winners of 2010 Religious Liberty Essay Contest

High school students write about landmark JFK speech concerning religion and politics on its 50th anniversary

WASHINGTON – The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty has announced the winners of the 2010 Religious Liberty Essay Scholarship Contest, sponsored by the Religious Liberty Council of the Baptist Joint Committee.

High school juniors and seniors from 17 states entered. In their essays, students reacted to John F. Kennedy’s landmark 1960 speech about the relationship between his religion and his politics and the separation of church and state. September 12 marks the 50th anniversary of the speech.

Click here to read about the winners.

BJC files ‘amicus’ brief opposing N.C. board’s prayer policy

Baptist Joint Committee urges district court to uphold ruling in Forsyth County, N.C.

July 8, 2010

istock_courtroom_web WASHINGTON – A policy inviting religious leaders to use meetings of the Forsyth County (N.C.) Board of Commissioners as a platform to promote their faith is unconstitutional, threatens religious liberty and degrades religion by entangling it with government, says a Baptist church-state organization in a friend-of-the-court brief (pdf) filed Tuesday.

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty filed an amicus brief in the appeal of a case brought by two residents of Forsyth County, N.C., who filed suit in March 2007 against the county. The residents challenged the county’s practice of allowing sectarian government-sponsored prayers at county board of commissioners meetings under the First and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution and sections of the North Carolina Constitution. They claimed the Board’s prayers advance Christianity and have the effect of affiliating the Board with it.

Click here to read the rest of the BJC statement.

Click here to download a pdf version of the brief.

BJC supporters warned of ‘Christian nationalists,’ honor Gardner Taylor

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (ABP) -- The culture warriors who contend that the United States is a “Christian nation” gravely endanger freedoms sacred to both Christianity and the nation, Mercer University President Bill Underwood warned supporters of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty June 25.

Underwood’s warning came during the BJC’s annual Religious Liberty Council luncheon at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly meeting in Charlotte, N.C. The group -- the BJC's individual-donor wing -- also elected new officers and honored legendary African-American Baptist pastor Gardner Taylor.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

You can watch a video of the entire RLC Luncheon or a video of Underwood's address. Click here to download his speech in Word document.

U.S. Supreme Court says a public college can limit access to a student forum

Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty comments on ‘Christian Legal Society v. Martinez’ ruling

June 28, 2010

cls-v-martinez-bug WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court today announced that public colleges and universities may require recognized student organizations to comply with an “all-comers” policy in order to receive associated benefits. In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the Court rejected the Christian Legal Society’s (CLS) claim that the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law’s policy violated its rights to free speech, expressive association and free exercise of religion.

In a 5-4 decision authored by Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court says Hastings did not violate the Constitution in requiring CLS “to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition” because its “all-comers” policy was applicable to all student groups, religious and secular alike, on the Hastings campus. The Court went on to say that Hastings “may reasonably draw a line in the sand permitting all organizations to express what they wish but no group to discriminate in membership.”

Click here to read the rest of the BJC statement on the ruling.

Click here to download a pdf of the brief filed by the BJC in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.

Click here to read a Q&A on the case with BJC General Counsel K. Hollyn Hollman.

ELENA KAGAN: Capable & leaving few clues

BJC releases report on nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan

An earlier version of this report, prepared prior to the final release of documents from Elena Kagan's service in the Clinton administration, was printed in the June 2010 Report from the Capital.

Introduction

President Barack Obama's nomination of U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens was not surprising. Kagan was considered a frontrunner before Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor was nominated last summer to replace Associate Justice David Souter. While widely admired for excellence in her profession, Kagan has expressed few opinions on matters that are likely to come before the Court. As a result, even those who know her well characterize her as "inscrutable."

While the BJC does not endorse or oppose Supreme Court nominees, we traditionally have prepared reports examining their church-state records. We follow the nomination process closely, reviewing the nominee's writings for clues about his or her approach to religious liberty and how it compares to that of the justice to be replaced. We often urge members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to question the nominee about particular concerns raised during our review, and we have done so with regard to this nomination.

Click here to read the full report.

Every Right to Exist Anywhere

Michael Kessler begins a column about the newest Muslim debate like this: With all the loud clamoring about the proposed Islamic Center to be built near Ground Zero, reasonable voices are hard to discern. One thing is clear: this is not a debate about religious freedom. A mosque by ...

Ohio Science Teacher Lawsuit Settles

Via Religion Clause, a lawsuit against controversial Ohio high school teacher John Freshwater has been settled, according to the Columbus Dispatch: The family of a boy who said his eighth-grade science teacher burned a cross on his arm with an electric lab instrument and taught Christ...

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