In an 8-0 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that religiously affiliated hospitals could jeopardize the financial security of hundreds of thousands of workers nationwide. The decision involves three cases – Dignity Health v. Starla Rollins, Advocate Health Care Network v. Maria Stapleton and St. Peter’s Healthcare System v. Laurence Kaplan.

Late Thursday, Americans United told a federal appeals court that women would be severely harmed by the Trump administration’s proposed change to the current requirement that health insurance cover contraceptives, a change that would allow employers and universities to use religion as an excuse to deny contraceptive coverage completely.

The Washington Post recently ran a long story about Ark Encounter, the Williamsburg, Ky., creationist attraction founded by Ken Ham, who leads the fundamentalist Religious Right organization Answers in Genesis. Although some readers found the story to be oddly sympathetic to Ham, some interesting tidbits are found in it. 

On Memorial Day, we remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation by laying down their lives to protect our freedoms.

One of those freedoms is the right to worship, or not, as you see fit. It’s ironic, therefore, that increasingly we are seeing examples of sectarian symbols, mainly crosses, being pressed into service as one-size-fits-all memorials for deceased veterans.