FaithNet of the National Alliance on Mental Illness is an outreach effort to religious communities to enhance understanding of the value of spirituality in responding to and recovering from mental illness.

The American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities has a Religion and Spirituality Division. Its mission is to promote spiritual growth for people with developmental disabilities. Margaret Nygren is executive director and CEO.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a civil rights legal advocacy group based in Montgomery, Ala. Email through the website.

Partners Against Hate works to educate young people about hate and hate crimes. It is based in Washington, D.C. Contact 202-452-8310.

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs tracks incidents of violence and harassment against LGBT people. Clarence Patton is acting executive director.

Read an April 27, 2009, interview at ReligionDispatches.org with Leonard Zeskind, author of a new book, Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement From the Margins to the Mainstream. Among other things, the book describes the religious roots of the movement.

Read a June 16, 2009, Christiannewswire.com story about a letter from 60 religious conservatives asking senators to filibuster the hate-crimes bill then under consideration for fear it would “criminalize preaching the Gospel and put preachers in the crosshairs.” Among the signers were James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Don […]

Factcheck.org has an analysis to address the concern over whether a hate-crime law covering sexual orientation could lead to charges against pastors who preach that homosexuality is a sin. Factcheck.org says no, but Catholic League head Bill Donohue — who has expressed strong reservations about the bill — disputed that analysis in a news release.

Pamela Cushing is a cultural anthropologist who teaches sociology at King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario. She has studied the L’Arche community, which provides homes for people with intellectual disabilities. She has also written about caregiving, researched social inclusion of people with disabilities and studied the growth of disabilities studies programs in the English-speaking […]