The foundation works to promote unity and religious understanding among different groups of American Muslims. Its chairman is Sheik Muhammad Hisham Kabbani. The organization is based in Burton, Mich.

The Institute of Interfaith Dialog was founded by Turkish Muslim Fethullah Gulen and, though based in Houston, has chapters throughout the South and Southwest.

Nyang is 
a professor of African studies at Howard University. He teaches and has written extensively about Islam and was the co-principal investigator for the research project “Muslims in the American Public Square.”

“American Muslim women discuss their choice to unveil; many now wear the headscarf only for prayers.”

Since 1963, American Atheists has been the premier organization laboring for the civil liberties of atheists and the total, absolute separation of government and religion. It is based in New Jersey and has chapters and affiliated organizations around the country.

Jon Gould is director of the Center for Justice, Law and Society at George Mason University in Virginia and author of Speak No Evil: The Triumph of Hate Speech Regulation (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming 2005).

Nadine Strossen is a professor at New York Law School and former president of the American Civil Liberties Union. She has written extensively about constitutional law and civil liberties and about students’ rights.

Janet R. Jakobsen is associate professor and director of the Center for Research on Women at Barnard College in Columbia University, New York. She co-authored Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance (Beacon Press, 2004).

Ask Bruce Reitman, dean of student affairs at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., about the problems for universities when they are asked to choose between the rights of gays and lesbians and freedom of association for religious groups. The meeting of such divergent opinions is an opportunity for students and faculty to enrich a university […]