Joni and Friends is an international disability ministry and advocacy group in Agoura Hills, Calif., founded in 1979 by Joni Eareckson Tada. It has a number of field service branches. Melany Ethridge handles media queries.

L’Arche is a faith-based residential community and movement founded in 1964 in France by Jean Vanier for people with developmental disabilities. L’Arche is now an international federation of communities. L’Arche came to the United States in 1972 and now has 18 American communities.

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 […]