Stanley Carlson-Thies is founder and senior director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, which has called for a “Fairness for All” approach to religious freedom and LGBTQ rights. He previously worked on faith-based initiatives for the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

What is clear is that presidents have nearly always been Protestants, with a few exceptions. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has a resource page on “Religion and the Presidency” that shows the religious affiliation of all 44 presidents. “Nearly half the nation’s presidents have been affiliated with the Episcopal or Presbyterian churches,” Pew […]

Lost in the uproar is the fact that all of the Inauguration Day clergy are Protestants. As Steven Waldman notes, there was often more religious diversity before 1990. And some have taken note of the lack of a rabbi, or imam, or Catholic priest as a headliner. 

Then Obama invited the openly gay New Hampshire bishop, V. Gene Robinson, to lead the invocation at another inaugural event, and more outrage ensued.

Obama’s choice of Pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback megachurch to give the invocation sparked an uproar. Liberals felt betrayed that Obama would pick an outspoken conservative evangelical and opponent of gay marriage and abortion rights for such a prime spot, and some of Warren’s allies on the religious right thought his appearance would give Obama […]

Obama’s choice of Pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback megachurch to give the invocation sparked an uproar. Liberals felt betrayed that Obama would pick an outspoken conservative evangelical and opponent of gay marriage and abortion rights for such a prime spot, and some of Warren’s allies on the religious right thought his appearance would give Obama […]

The chaplain of the Senate traditionally gave a blessing at the inauguration, but since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937, the president-elect has chosen clergy to deliver the prayers. Steven Waldman, author of the book Founding Faith: Providence, Politics and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America (2008) and editor in chief of Beliefnet, has an archive of the […]

In the run-up to the inaugural, President-elect Obama said he would continue the practice, whatever its origins. But several atheist groups filed a suit to remove the words from the oath on the grounds that it violates the separation of church and state. They were also joined by prominent atheist and activist Michael Newdow, who lost a […]

David Neumark is an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine. Neumark co-authored a July 2005 analysis called “A Decade of Living Wages: What Have We Learned?” That report concludes that living-wage laws have increased salaries of the lowest-wage earners, but there have been some adverse effects too, and more policy changes are needed to […]