Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
A vote in Switzerland to ban the construction of Muslim minarets and controversies over global warming research led conversations in the blogosphere last week. On Twitter, it was a story about a local billboard campaign with unintended consequences. And on YouTube, a pop singer made her second appearance in recent weeks.
More than half a century ago, the United Nations affirmed the principle of religious freedom in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, defining it as “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” For just as long, journalists and human rights groups have reported on persecution of minority faiths, outbreaks of sectarian violence […]
On Oct. 7, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Salazar v. Buono, a case involving a constitutional challenge to the presence of an eight-foot-tall Christian cross in the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County, Calif. The case arose when Frank Buono, a former assistant superintendent of the preserve, filed a […]
Results for this survey are based on telephone interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International among a nationwide sample of 4,013 adults, 18 years of age or older. Interviews were conducted in two waves, the first from August 11-17, 2009 (Survey A) and the second from August 20-27, 2009 (Survey B). […]
One of the major findings from the 1991 Times Mirror Center study was the high level of antipathy toward ethnic and religious minorities in Eastern Europe. With communist rule over in most of the region, and in its final stages in the Soviet Union, long-simmering conflicts among groups within these societies were reemerging. Today, in […]
Results for this survey are based on telephone interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International among a nationwide sample of 4,013 adults, 18 years of age or older. Interviews were conducted in two waves, the first from August 11-17, 2009 (Survey A) and the second from August 20-27, 2009 (Survey B). […]
The U.S. unemployment rate jumped, the Afghan runoff election was cancelled and the House of Representatives passed a health care bill last week. But those stories all took a back seat to coverage of the killing spree at Fort Hood Texas, which quickly became a story about Islam and possibly, terrorism.
Updated Sept. 9, 2009 On Feb. 5, 2009, two weeks after taking office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The new office retains the basic administrative structure of President George W. Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The central White House […]
Overview More than eight years after former President George W. Bush unveiled his faith-based initiative to make it easier for religious groups to receive government funding to provide social services, the policy continues to draw broad public support. But as was the case when Bush first announced the initiative, many Americans express concerns about blurring […]