Christian Science Monitor: "[Cordoba's] Islamic period and longstanding arguments about its meaning – a symbol of tolerance and hope or an expression of an expansive and aggressive faith? – is an ancient reflection of the current US back and forth over mosques and their meanings, driven by the controversial project, now called Park51 after the project's location two blocks from the old World Trade Center."

Notre Dame News: "The keynote speaker is former federal judge Michael W. McConnell, the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law at Stanford University and leading expert on constitutional law. McConnell also directs Stanford’s Constitutional Law Center."

Associated Press: "FBI agents and civil rights division investigators also are looking into vandalism and other incidents at mosques or mosque construction sites in Arlington, Texas; Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Madera, Calif., and Waterport, N.Y."

Russell Shaw writing at The Catholic World Report: "The speech was then and remains today among the most important American political utterances of the 20th century . . . Fifty years after the Kennedy speech, his words deserve a close look to see whether they merit such criticism and, if so, why . . . Kennedy’s privatizing of religion operated on two levels: the macro level of politics and public life, and the private level of individual conscience. In both areas, the message was devastating."

Hartford Courant: "Last month, a federal district court judge ruled that sufficient evidence of 'discrimination against Jewish people' may exist, warranting a trial over the Borough of Litchfield's denial of a conservative Hasidic group's application to build a synagogue on the west end of the green. The ruling virtually guarantees a trial this fall on a controversy that has deeply divided this celebrated tourist town and attracted national media attention."

The city “suspended” Dr. Michael Campion, a psychologist who performed employment testing for the city, shortly after city officials learned of his affiliation with a conservative Christian organization, the Illinois Family Institute.

AFP: "US Attorney General Eric Holder was Tuesday to meet with religious leaders from across all faiths to discuss ways to stem a wave of attacks against Muslims and mosques. The talks would examine measures the Department of Justice 'can take against rising anti-Muslim hate and acts of violence and intimidation against American Muslims,' the broad coalition said in a press release."

Becket Fund: "The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty will hold a briefing on Issues of Conscience under Present Law featuring Professor Robin Wilson, expert in health law and Class of 1958 Law Alumni professor of Law at the Washington and Lee University School of Law, and Eric Rassbach, National Litigation Director at The Becket Fund and expert in church-state law. Thursday, September 9th, 2010; 12:00 – 2:00pm."

Family PAC” wanted to make advertisements that would encourage voters in Washington State to vote “Yes” on a question on their ballot that would support traditional family values. To do that, Family PAC wanted to raise contributions so that it would have money to make its ads. However, Washington law banned contributions greater than $5,000 during the twenty-one days before the election—the very time period when many people are most inclined to listen to political ads. A donor offered Family PAC a large sum of money to fund their advertisements, but Family PAC was not able to accept the donation because of Washington’s law.

Fox News / Live Shots: “Fab Cusson says the Bible helped him beat an addiction to the painkiller Oxycontin five years ago. Now he wants to share the Scripture passages he says saved his life . . . the town’s [Chichester, NH] planning and zoning boards have turned him down twice . . . Cusson has hired a lawyer from the Alliance Defense Fund, which deals with freedom of religion cases. Cusson’s attorney, Michael Tierney says like the Bible, Chichester’s laws are open to interpretation. ‘My client has the right to proclaim a Biblical message in line with the variance and zoning ordinance criteria. We believe that the zoning ordinance was not correctly applied in this case.’” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMK0Kt-_dXs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThjDfxXF2yY

Associated Press: "Residents are scheduled to speak out against a recommendation from a Loudoun County board subcommittee to ban religious holiday displays on the grounds of the county courthouse."

Washington Post: "More than 160 Muslims have enlisted the federal government in two discrimination lawsuits against JBS Swift meatpacking plants, where they allege blood and bones were hurled at them, bathroom walls were covered with vile graffiti and company supervisors disrupted their efforts to worship during Ramadan, ultimately firing many Islamic employees. The two Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuits filed last week allege a pattern of religious and national origin discrimination and a hostile work environment at two plants - in Greeley, Colo., and Grand Island, Neb." EEOC Press Release

Baltimore Sun: "In one of the cases kicking off its fall term, Maryland's highest court is being asked whether a judge violated an Orthodox Jew's right to religious freedom by holding a medical malpractice trial without him and his lawyer during a major Jewish holiday." Neustadter v. Holy Cross Hospital of Silver Spring, Inc. | Via Religion Clause.

OneNewsNow: "Pastor Mark Holick of Spirit One Christian Center was one of those passing out the packets to people leaving the mosque. Holick tells OneNewsNow that when local police officers arrived on the scene, he was handcuffed then detained in a patrol car, where he repeatedly asked what crime he had committed . . . Holick says serious free-speech rights are in question, so he is asking the Alliance Defense Fund to represent him. There has been no decision on that so far."

OneNewsNow: "A federal appeals court has ruled that officials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison violated the First Amendment by refusing to fund events of a student Catholic organization while providing funding for the events of other student organizations . . . 'This is a great victory for religious freedom,' says [Jordan Lorence], senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund and the attorney who argued before the Seventh Circuit last fall on behalf of the Catholic student group."

Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "A psychologist who screened potential Minneapolis police officers will receive a $210,000 settlement from the city over his firing, which stemmed from his affiliation with the Illinois Family Institute and his support for treating the 'problem' of homosexuality . . . [Jim Campbell], of the Alliance Defense Fund of Arizona, said the settlement 'reinforces that the government cannot penalize Christian contractors for their beliefs.'"

Yahoo News: "Several hundred Afghans chanting 'Death to America' rallied outside a mosque in the Afghan capital on Monday to protest against an American church's plan to burn a copy of the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks."

"The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a small Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort."

The Brandenburg Paradigm and Other First Amendments Steven G. Gey, 12 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 971 (2010) "This Article starts by describing the baseline for all free speech jurisprudence--the jurisprudence that applies to political advocacy. It then distills from the Court's major political speech cases a set of principles that I call 'the Brandenburg paradigm.' The remainder of the Article discusses whether the theoretical assumptions made in the Brandenburg paradigm also should be applied to areas of speech other than political advocacy. I address several areas of expression specifically, including threats, obscenity, 'teaching speech,' and student speech in public schools. An assessment of these different speech categories indicates that there is no good reason to ignore the Brandenburg paradigm outside the political advocacy category. Indeed, a very good reason exists to apply the Brandenburg paradigm to the entire range of First Amendment issues: the assumptions that underlie Brandenburg--for example, that citizens control the government rather than vice versa, that citizens should develop their own value systems free of government coercion, and that the government should suppress ideas it dislikes only in the face of serious, concrete harms stemming from that expression--should not be regarded solely as artifacts of the First Amendment but rather as indispensable elements of constitutional democracy itself."

Baptist Press: "Seven years after Alabama removed a Ten Commandments monument from a government building under federal court-order, the state of Oklahoma is preparing to erect its own Ten Commandments monument on capitol grounds, and supporters say they have the backing of recent Supreme Court precedent . . . The monument will use identical language and even an identical design to one on the Texas state capitol grounds -- the same one the Supreme Court upheld in its 2005 Van Orden v. Perry decision."