When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

                           Benjamin Franklin



  ARL in the News

  ARL Goes to Court

  Journal/Newsletter -
  The Voice of Reason

  ARL Publications

  ARL Articles

  About ARL

  Contact ARL

  Join ARL

Religious Affiliations of the 112th Congress Click for PDF
Everson v. Board of Education (1947)

The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect "a wall of separation between church and state."

    Justice Hugo L. Black for the majority, 330 U.S. 15, 16.
 

March 6, 2011

You can now download an updated PDF file containing the Religious Affiliations of the 112th Congress from Americans for Religious Liberty.

Click here to download and view it now.

Please note that you must have the Adobe Acrobat Viewer installed on your computer to view this file. If you do not have the viewer you can download it using the following button.

February 16, 2011

Written Testimony of the National Coalition for Public Education Submitted to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs for the Hearing on "The Value of Education Choices: Saving the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program"

Click here to download and view it now.

Please note that you must have the Adobe Acrobat Viewer installed on your computer to view this file. If you do not have the viewer you can download it using the following button.

December 11, 2009

Voters vs. Vouchers

Opinion polls over the years have generally shown opposition to any form of tax aid to faith-based and other private schools, and the results have varied depending on how the question is asked. But the most reliable measure of opinion is the statewide referendum in which actual voters register their views. Below are listed the 27 referenda to date that have dealt with vouchers, tax-code vouchers (tuition tax credits), and other forms of tax aid to nonpublic schools. A more extensive treatment of this issue may be found on this website in ARL's journal No. 86, and in ARL's book, The Case Against School Vouchers, which may be ordered from ARL.

August 20, 2009

You can now download an updated PDF file containing the Religious Affiliations of the 111th Congress from Americans for Religious Liberty.

Click here to download and view it now.

Please note that you must have the Adobe Acrobat Viewer installed on your computer to view this file. If you do not have the viewer you can download it using the following button.

July 8, 2009

The May 31 murder of Dr. George Tiller in his Wichita, Kansas, church, nothing less than a terrorist assassination, was far more than just a tragedy for a courageous, caring physician who was one of the very few to provide a rarely needed medical procedure for women with seriously problematic pregnancies. It was also a vicious attack on the right of all women to legal and appropriate medical care, an assault on the freedom of conscience of all women, and an ever so clear act of intimidation against health care providers out of sync with a dangerously misguided fundamentalist patriachalism. The propagandists who demonize freedom of choice share in the responsibility for this act of violence.
                                    - Edd Doerr

October 17, 2008

Americans for Religious Liberty has published The Lord Was Not on Trial: The Inside Story of the Supreme Court’s Precedent-Setting McCollum Ruling, by Dannel McCollum.

Click Here for Details

July 10, 2008

Americans for Religious Liberty has joined with more than 40 religious, civil liberties, and other organizations in the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination (CARD) in a letter to presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain urging them to clean up the serious flaws in the Bush Administration’s Faith-Based Initiative. The 5-page letter concludes: "We urge you to restore religious liberty and civil rights as critical components of further administration policy."

April 25, 2008

Americans for Religious Liberty has joined six organizations (American Jewish Committee, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Hadassah, The Interfaith Alliance Foundation, and the Hindu American Foundation) in filing an amicus brief on April 16 urging the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati to overrule a lower federal court decision and sustain the principle that government funds may not be used for direct religious purposes.

March 18, 2007

You can now download an updated PDF file containing the Congressional Religious Affiliation Count in the 110th Congress - Totals.

Click here to download and view it now.

Please note that you must have the Adobe Acrobat Viewer installed on your computer to view this file. If you do not have the viewer you can download it using the following button.

December 17, 2006

You can now download an updated PDF file containing the Religious Affiliations of the 110th Congress from Americans for Religious Liberty.

Click here to download and view it now.

Please note that you must have the Adobe Acrobat Viewer installed on your computer to view this file. If you do not have the viewer you can download it using the following button.

May 1, 2006

Still available is an updated PDF file containing the Religious Affiliations of the 109th Congress from Americans for Religious Liberty.

Click here to download and view it now.

January 31, 2006

ARL Goes to Court: Now available is a listing of all the litigation in which ARL has been involved since 1982 -- over 60 cases.

Click here to view it now.

July 6, 2005

Now available is a PDF file containing a speech presented by Albert J. Menendez to the National Education Association Annual Conference in Los Angeles, California on June 29, 2005.

Click here to download and view it now.

Please note that you must have the Adobe Acrobat Viewer installed on your computer to view these files. If you do not have the viewer you can download it using the following button.

May 16, 2005

Now available is a PDF file containing a platform address entitled Is Government in America Becoming Faith-Based? presented by Edd Doerr to the New York Society for Ethical Culture on May 8, 2005.

Click here to download and view it now.

Please note that you must have the Adobe Acrobat Viewer installed on your computer to view these files. If you do not have the viewer you can download it using the following button.

March 5, 2005

Now available is a PDF file containing The Importance of Church-State Separation by Edd Doerr.

Click here to download and view it now.

Also available is Religion in the Public Schools: A Joint Statement of Current Law (April 1995)

Click here to download and view it now.

Please note that you must have the Adobe Acrobat Viewer installed on your computer to view these files. If you do not have the viewer you can download it using the following button.

November 10, 2004

You can now download a convenient PDF file containing the Religious Affiliations of the 109th Congress from Americans for Religious Liberty.

Click here to download and view it now.

Please note that you must have the Adobe Acrobat Viewer installed on your computer to view this file. If you do not have the viewer you can download it using the following button.

September 20, 2004

Americans for Religious Liberty joined with 30 other organizations in the National Coalition for Public Education in sending the following letter on September 20, 2004, to the Senate Appropriations Committee urging termination of school voucher plan for the District of Columbia. D.C. voters had rejected a similar in a 1981 referendum by a margin of 89% to 11%, and D.C.'s non-voting congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, has opposed the plan.



Since it was founded in 1981 Americans for Religious Liberty has steadfastly supported the constitutional principle of separation of church and state that is the indispensable guarantor of religious and intellectual freedom, religiously neutral democratic public education, and individual freedom of conscience.

ARL has promoted and defended this principle through publishing, research, litigation, coalition building, public speaking, expert testimony before national and state legislative committees. ARL regularly cooperates with a wide range of civil liberties, educational, religious, labor, and reproductive rights groups.

ARL is open to all who share its dedication to defending and advancing church-state separation.

In a world where many voices of extremism seek to subvert freedom, we need to be voices of reason and to rally to its support.

-- Edd Doerr, President


Americans for Religious Liberty - P.O.Box 6656 - Silver Spring, MD 20916
Telephone: 301-260-2988 - Fax: 301-260-2989 - Email: arlinc@verizon.net