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  • transcript

    Religion and Secularism: The American Experience

    Pew Forum Faith Angle Conference Key West, Florida http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?autostart=false&brandname=Pew%20Forum&brandlink=https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/religion&showplayerpath=http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf&file=http://religionsecularism.blip.tv/rss/flash?sort=date&nsfw=dc&user=McClayForum&showguidebutton=false&showsharebutton=true&showfsbutton=true&showplaylist=trueWatch more event video on the multimedia page. More from the December 2007 Faith Angle Conference Religious Literacy: What Every American Should Know The Religion Factor in the 2008 Election More: Research, news, blogs Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in December, […]

  • transcript

    ’Heroic Conservatism’: A Conversation with Author Michael Gerson

    Washington, D.C. http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?autostart=false&brandname=Pew%20Forum&brandlink=https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/religion&showplayerpath=http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf&file=http://pewforum.blip.tv/rss/flash?sort=date&nsfw=dc&user=pewforum&showguidebutton=false&showsharebutton=true&showfsbutton=true&showplaylist=true The Pew Forum invited former presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson to discuss his new book, Heroic Conservatism, with Forum senior advisors Michael Cromartie and E.J. Dionne Jr. and a select group of journalists. Gerson was challenged to define “heroic conservatism” and critique the Bush administration’s record on implementing the “compassionate conservative” philosophy Gerson […]

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    Faith and the Public Dialogue: A Conversation with Sen. John Kerry

    Washington, D.C. The Pew Forum invited Mass. Sen. John Kerry to discuss the propriety of public inquiry into politicians’ religious beliefs and how those beliefs influence candidates’ views on the issues of the day. Kerry, a 2004 presidential candidate, also addressed the role of faith in presidential campaigns, his perspective on religion in the 2008 […]

  • fact sheet

    The Free Exercise Clause and the Parameters of Religious Liberty

    The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees that the federal government will respect the “free exercise” of religion. But the precise meaning of “free exercise” and exactly what constitutes an infringement of this right are not clear-cut. At the heart of the debate is one basic question: Do individuals or groups professing sincerely held […]

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    A Delicate Balance: The Free Exercise Clause and the Supreme Court

    In a new series of occasional reports, “Religion and the Courts: The Pillars of Church-State Law,” the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life explores the complex, fluid relationship between government and religion. Among the issues to be examined are religion in public schools, displays of religious symbols on public property, conflicts concerning the free […]

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    Gov Gab

    USA.gov’s new blog is almost as fun as watching 1970s PSAs on YouTube.

  • report

    Looking for a Way Out: Rethinking the Arab-Israeli Conflict

    Few Palestinian families have deeper roots in Jerusalem than Sari Nusseibeh’s. In the 7th century, immediately after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, the caliph Omar the Great entrusted one of Nusseibeh’s ancestors with the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. From childhood onward, Nusseibeh, who was educated as a philosopher at Oxford and […]

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    Capital Punishment’s Constant Constituency: An American Majority

    (For more recent public opinion data on the death penalty, see a 2011 analysis.) by Robert Ruby, Senior Editor, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life In the last 35 years, beginning with its temporary moratorium on the death penalty, the Supreme Court has changed its view of capital punishment and done so more than […]

  • fact sheet

    From the Ten Commandments to Christmas Trees: Public Religious Displays and the Courts

    For most of the nation’s history, public religious displays were not controversial. But in recent decades, a growing number of citizens and civil liberties groups have sued towns, cities and states over religious symbols in the public square, arguing that these displays should be removed because they violate the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishment […]