Affirmative action, discrimination against LGBTQ people and election laws are some of the hot-button issues that the Supreme Court will tackle this fall.
Pope Francis on his three-day trip to Kazakhstan in September 2022.
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko
Christianity is the second-largest religion in Kazakhstan, with 26% of the population practicing the faith. But many Christians, especially in the smaller denominations, have experienced persecution.
Abortion-rights protesters shout slogans after tying green flags to the fence of the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 9, 2022.
AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe
Historians of American religious history explain why the Supreme Court’s recent religious liberty rulings are an example of America’s long struggle to define religious freedom.
Joe Kennedy poses in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building after his legal case, Kennedy vs. Bremerton School District, was argued before the court on April 25, 2022.
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Kennedy v. Bremerton, a case about a public school teacher’s prayer, helps close out a Supreme Court term in which religion was often in the spotlight.
Students walk by security fences installed in front of the Supreme Court.
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Dorian Llywelyn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
When death is looming, the warmth of a held hand can communicate deeply where words fail.
A woman holds a rosary and a picture of the Virgin Mary during a 2019 hearing in Albany, N.Y., challenging the constitutionality of the state’s repeal of the religious exemption to vaccination.
AP Photo/Hans Pennink
School reforms pushed by French President Emmanuel Macron are aimed at pushing Muslim students into public schools. An expert explains why this may be the wrong approach.
Many evangelical voters believe they found a protector in chief in Donald Trump.
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Diane Winston, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
A religion scholar explains how Ronald Reagan invoked religion and shifted the American notion of a good society – a vision that might resonate with the politics of today.
People gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court building as news spread of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Sept. 18 death.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
A 6-3 conservative court will hear a broader range of controversial cases, shift interpretations of individual rights and put more pressure on local democracy to make policy decisions.
A vaccine for COVID-19 may only effectively stop the spread if enough people take it.
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A public health lawyer and ethicist explores the thorny issue of whether requiring people to be vaccinated against COVID-19 might be necessary. And if so, can people object citing their faith?
President Donald Trump with pastor Paula White during a dinner for evangelical leaders in the White House, on Aug. 27, 2018.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
President Trump has promised to protect religious liberty. But there was a time when evangelicals believed that a religion that needed protection from government had no reason to exist at all.
Samuel Brownback appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
America has been promoting religious liberty abroad since its founding, but there has always been disagreement on what exactly it means.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stands during a service at the International Church of Las Vegas in Las Vegas in Oct. 2016.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File
Trump embraced evangelicals in his first year as president. Here, scholars provide historical context to how the religious right has shaped American politics over the past decades.
The wedding cake on display at Masterpiece Cakeshop.
AP Photo/Brennan Linsley
The Supreme Court appeared divided over claims of religious freedom in the case of a gay wedding. History shows how contentious religious freedom has been in America.
Can services be refused to same-sex couples?
Brennan Linsley/AP Photo