The International Vegetarian Union is a global network of independent organizations that promote vegetarianism worldwide by educating people on the history, prevalence and religious influences of vegetarianism.

ACLU of Massachusetts v. Secretary of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: The ACLU filed a 2005 lawsuit against the U.S. government, accusing it of financing the religious activities of Silver Ring Thing, a national program that provides abstinence-only education. In 2002, the state of Louisiana settled a lawsuit in which the ACLU asked […]

Jenna Weissman-Joselit, a visiting professor of Jewish History at Princeton University. She studies closely the relationship between the material culture and personal identity. She has authored a number of books, including The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture, 1880-1950 (Henry Colt, 1994) which received the National Jewish Book Award in History, and A Perfect Fit: Clothes, Character, and […]

Charles Wallace is a chaplain and retired professor of religious studies at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

Peter Harle, a visiting lecturer, has taught a course on Religion and Food at Macalester College. Read a syllabus.

A Stateline.org story. The U.S. government continues to increase funding for abstinence-only education and requires states to teach abstinence only in order to receive funds. In November 2005, Maine joined California and Pennsylvania in rejecting thousands of federal dollars in favor of teaching comprehensive sex education.

Read an interview with Daniel Sack, author of Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture (St. Martin’s Press, 2000) and associate director of the Material Religion Project.

Dr. Barry Solof is a psychiatrist in Beverly Hills, Calif., and a fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He heads the Kaiser Permanente addiction medicine department in West Covina, Calif., and is a board member of the Secular Organization for Sobriety.

Dr. Walter Ling is a professor of psychiatry and director of the Integrated Substance Abuse Programs at the University of California, Los Angeles.