Friendship Ministries in Grand Rapids, Mich., helps congregations work with people with cognitive impairments. Tom VanWingerden is the executive director.

The CEC- Faith Based Schools and Organizations is a network of those interested in advancing the field as to how children with disabilities are served in faith based schools and organizations. The chair is Dr. Julie M. Lane.

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.

Read an Oct. 13, 2009, blog post at “On Faith” by David Waters about the religiously based opposition to the hate-crimes bill.

Jeff McNair is professor of education at California Baptist University in Riverside. He directs the Center for the Study of Religion and Disability and maintains the blog Disabled Christianity.

Nancy Nason-Clark is professor emerita of sociology at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, Canada. She has written about the interface between religion and domestic violence for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and is co-author of Refuge From Abuse: Healing and Hope for Abused Christian Women. She worked on a four-year project funded by the Lilly Endowment called RAVE, Religion and Violence e-Learning, a […]

Adelita Medina is executive director of Alianza, the National Latino Alliance for the Elimination of Domestic Violence. She has said that advocates for women who have experienced domestic violence should take a woman’s faith into consideration when trying to help her.