Jerry Falwell is dead.  Some people will take this as evidence of the decline of the religious right. But, a new generation of leaders will soon come to the fore... meanwhile, troubling evidence, from many quarters, continues to surface and point towards likelihood that the movement isn't going away.

Rev. Donald Wildmon's three-decade old American Family Association develops sophisticated 'godcasting' network to activate its community of 'first responders'

It has an annual budget of close to $17 million, net assets of more than $32 million, owns and feeds programming to nearly 200 radio stations, employs about 100 at its home-base, operates the Center for Law & Policy, a high-powered conservative legal enterprise, and has developed one of the most sophisticated communications networks in all of right wing grassroots Christendom. And, after three decades of conducting boycotts, demonizing homosexuals, and railing against the entertainment industry, the Reverend Donald Wildmon's Tupelo, Mississippi-based American Family Association is as cranky as it ever was.

Former Department of Health and Human Services official signs on as a consultant with Deloitte Consulting LLP after questions are raised about federal government grants and abstinence-only sex education programs

It's difficult to know exactly what Wade Horn was thinking in the days prior to his resignation from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): Perhaps he didn't relish the thought of having to defend his pouring of millions of dollars in taxpayer money into abstinence-only sex education programs that have been thoroughly discredited; perhaps he was worried about being brought in front of a congressional committee and asked to account for some of his other grant-making decisions.

Perhaps he was concerned about being subjected to charges of cronyism -- involving contracts to organizations he has been closely affiliated with -- and/or nepotism -- involving subcontracts attained by his wife's company from organizations that received faith-based money. Perhaps he was thinking that the revelation "shortly before his resignation" that the nearly $1 million he gave to the National Fatherhood Initiative ( NFI ), where he was the president for at least three years until joining the Bush administration in 2001, was only the tip of the iceberg.

Perhaps it was all of the above.

note: see extended story for updates

"Since moving back to Iowa about two years ago I have been thrust into a struggle with the Iowa City Veterans Hospital & Clinics over religious discrimination and Christian proselytizing." - Jewish Navy Veteran David "Akiva David" Miller

As part of a pervasive pattern of religious discrimination a disabled Jewish US Navy veteran says he has encountered at the Iowa City Veterans Administration Hospital and Clinic, David "Akiva David" Miller* writes: "Over time it has become clear that each experience of discrimination is not isolated from the others; in fact the problem of religious discrimination is systemic to the Iowa City VA.... I am a disabled veteran who served my Country honorably in the US Navy. I am also an Orthodox Jew ....not only did the hospital refuse to notify my Rabbi, as I requested, they sent a Protestant chaplain in to see me each time. The first two visits by the Protestant (Assembly of God) Chaplain were all about trying to convert me - trying to convince me that I needed Jesus, that Jesus was the Messiah of the Jews too - this while I was suffering chest pains and wired to a heart monitor!  ....The Federal Courts have ruled that publicly funded hospitals may not engage in proselytizing. Clearly the actions of the Iowa City VA are in violation of the Constitution's provision for the separation of Church and State as well. So, now I am fighting back in earnest." [for full text of Miller's description, and follow up posts, see extended story]

Turks it seems, from the recent massive pro-secularism demonstrations in Turkey, remember a principle many Americans seem on the verge of forgetting: the reasons for secular government, the key role secularism plays in keeping peace between factions within pluralistic democracy. I encountered the "Church Court" story in late October of last year when a friend emailed me a clipping of an editorial from New Jersey Lawyer, entitled "Faith Based Justice", which  began: "Recently, we witnessed a rather extraordinary exchange between Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz and U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie.... The U.S. attorney requested -- seemingly demanded -- that the state judges, in effect, set up court in churches for the purpose of arraigning fugitives. "...

Despite suffering a series of legal blows, Bush's program continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups

In early April, officials in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, agreed to bar any public funding of religious activities as part of a settlement in a lawsuit challenging a local "faith-based" ministry for prisoners.

In mid-February, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the "Americans United v. Prison Fellowship Ministry," (involving Chuck Colson's prison program in Iowa) case at the federal courthouse in St. Louis, Missouri.

Although neither the Bradford agreement nor the Iowa case will likely reach the U.S. Supreme Court anytime soon, sometime before its upcoming summer recess, the Court will hand down a ruling that could significantly shape the future of President George W. Bush's faith-based initiative. The much trumpeted program, intended by Team Bush to be the centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda, has been taking its fair share of political and legal hits during the past few years.

Guest front pager Mikey Weinstein served as Assistant General Counsel for Ronald Reagan.  He founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to ensure the continued separation of Church and State, as essential principle of  America's Constitution. --ed

When I began asking questions about what I saw going on at Colorado Springs in 2004 I never expected that the inquiry would lead me to the horrifying conclusion that our country had been taken over by people who have used our own freedoms to enslave us. But that is what happened. When I began I, like most people, was focused on the personal. I believed that what was happening at the United States Air Force Academy, the harassment of cadets and staff with unwanted evangelism, was limited in scope. As the months passed, however, I found myself forced to constantly reassess my basic assumptions

More often than not, he is a proud defender of all things Bush. And, when his name comes up you don't usually associate it with the word "maverick," but recently Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has, in one way or another, strayed, not so much from the Bush Administration line, but from some of his conservative Christian brethren.

A few days ago, Rev. Don Wilkey Jr., the pastor of Onalaska First Baptist Church, in Onalaska, Texas, concluded his fine Talk2Action post about Richard Land with these words:

Years ago, Richard Land cast his lot with the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC, with the religious right political movement, and in particular, the presidency and policy of George W. Bush. He has played a central role in making the SBC an agency of fundamentalism and a prop for the Bush agenda. We can only wonder how the changing political climate will affect his fortunes, and those of the SBC.

Here's a closer look at how Land is adjusting to "the changing political landscape.

Americans United has won a settlement against the Veterans Administration involving religious bias against Wiccan military members who desired the symbol of their faith, a pentacle, on their tombstones.

According to recent published reports, former Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum - thoroughly defeated in November by Bob Casey, Jr. -- is planning two documentary film projects to "tell the other side of the story." What story is he talking about? According to The Morning Call Online, the projects are aimed at "counter[ing] what [Santorum] characterized as the stream of left-wing documentaries coming from Hollywood and independent filmmakers."

The newspaper reported that Santorum first project "would explore the relationship between radical Islam and the radical leftists in various countries around the world, including Latin America. It would be about an hour in length. The second would be a longer, broader documentary that he said would aim to 'change the culture of America.' He declined to go into specifics about the proposal."

Tom Monaghan's Ave Maria University, located in the friendly confines of the still-under-construction Ave Maria Town in Florida has been the subject of unwanted headlines during the past few weeks. Within the space of 48 hours, one of the university's top administrators, Provost Joseph Fessio, was fired and then rehired.

Details of the original firing are still murky. At first it appeared that Fessio, founder of Ignatius Press in San Francisco (the primary English-language publisher of Pope Benedict XVI) and the University of San Francisco's Ignatius Institute, wasn't up to the task of enrolling enough students or raising the necessary money for building the first new Catholic university in the U.S. in 40 years. Then, it seemed that the former student and longtime friend of the current Pope (formerly Cardinal Josef Ratzinger) may have been let go because of his comments to the California Catholic Daily suggesting that homosexuality has biological roots.

The Reverend Jerry Falwell appears to have his eyes on two different kinds of races these days: The founder of the Moral Majority and frequent guest on cable television's news networks is not only looking forward to exerting considerable influence on who the Republican Party will choose as its 2008 presidential standard bearer, but he's also getting his Liberty University involved with NASCAR.