Source: The Houston Chronicle

On May 30, 2001, The Houston Chronicle reported that "a hotly contested ruling that an Indiana city must remove a statue containing the Ten Commandments from outside City Hall will not face Supreme Court review, a divided court said." A lawyer supporting display of the Commandments said that the high court's decision not to review the case would "only add to the confusion surrounding the displays of Ten Commandments in communities across the country." His opponents, however, said that "the Supreme Court decision not to review...

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On May 28, 2001, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on the biannual West County Greek Festival. "'These events are really important for us because they celebrate Greek culture and really bring our people together,' said the Rev. Joseph Strzelecki. 'Greece is predominately Orthodox, and the church is the center of the social life. To Greeks, culture and faith are one.' Reflecting that union, the festival included traditional food, dance and music, as well as lectures in the church's 40-pew sanctuary."

Source: Newsday

On May 28, 2001, Newsday reported that "Armenians from throughout the Northeast and beyond converged on Central Park [in New York City] to welcome His Holiness Karekin II, leader of the Armenian Church, on his first pontifical visit to the United States." The role of Karekin II "is analogous to that of the Roman Catholic pope...The Armenian Church is an independent Christian church... The service -conducted in K'rapar, a medieval dialect of Armenian - represented the highlight of a weekend-long celebration."

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

On May 27, 2001, The Columbus Dispatch published an opinion piece that charges the Columbus school district with being "seriously out of tune on the issue of religion in the schools...Last June student choirs at Columbus Alternative High School and Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School sang songs with a Christian theme...As a result, several parents complained that the performances amounted to school sponsorship of religion...School board members didn't want to come up with a policy" limiting the religious content of choral...

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On May 27, 2001, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that "legislation passed by Congress last year now tips the scale in favor of religious institutions in many land use disputes. And a Franklin church is on course to become the first in Wisconsin to test the law in court...Rev. Ardyth Johnson's Faith Community Church wants to build a meeting house and fellowship hall on 10 acres zoned residential...Johnson...has told the city her church may file suit under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act if...

Source: The Washington Post

On May 27, 2001, The Washington Post reported on "an all-day Buddhist festival celebrated...by an estimated 2,000 people at the Fauquier County Buddhist temple...As Buddhists from across the region streamed into the Wat Lao Buddhavong center yesterday, organizers said the attendance was a sign that their religion is growing and has become a united community of many nations...[The] Buddhist festival was just one of three Asian religious festivals this weekend, a sign of the growing religious and ethnic diversity in the Washington...

Source: The Boston Globe

On May 27, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that opponents of the Catholic Church's ban on the ordination of women protested outside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, where seven men were recently ordained as priests.

Source: The Arizona Republic

On May 27, 2001, The Arizona Republic reported on "the Spring Gathering of the Tribes here, on a remote wooded farm where hundreds of Pagans from Virginia and the East Coast have set up camp...Gathering attendees portrayed themselves as normal Americans who hold spiritual beliefs in the power of nature and in male and female sources of divinity...Some area ministers said earlier this week that they might organize a protest against the weekend gathering, but little has materialized."

Source: Los Angeles Times

On May 27, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported on the Church of Christ of Cypress, made up mostly of white senior citizens, and the Westside Church of Christ, filled with young African American families, who integrated into one Santa Ana church. This type of racial integration is "unimaginable in most of the Christian church world...Academics estimate that only 2% of America's churches have successfully developed multicultural congregations...Ten months into the experiment in Cypress, the church has maintained the original...

Source: The New York Times

On May 25, 2001, The New York Times reported that the Rev. John D. Castellani, president of the drug-treatment program Teen Challenge International U.S.A., used the term "completed Jews" in testimony before a House subcommittee. "The term 'completed Jews' is now in use by some evangelical Christians and Jewish converts to describe Jews who have accepted Jesus as their savior. To many Jews it is offensive...Jewish and civil liberties groups are using the testimony as fresh evidence that the president's initiative will result in...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On May 25, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that "plans for a $4.5-million interfaith chapel at Chapman University...suffered another setback this week when Orange planning commissioners rejected the project on aesthetic grounds...Chapman officials said they plan to appeal the decision to the City Council...The design for the 250-seat Wallace All Faiths Chapel uses universal religious themes of light, water and nature."

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

On May 25, 2001, The Columbus Dispatch reported that "Bush came to Cleveland yesterday to promote his faith-based initiative in visits to a food pantry and a school for the disabled...Ohio is one of only five states to embrace charitable choice. The state's county welfare agencies award $ 25 million a year to faith- based organizations."

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

On May 25, 2001, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that "fifteen thousand Jehovah's Witnesses from across the Midwest are expected to gather at Comiskey Park [in Chicago] for a three-day convention encouraging people to study scripture for themselves. 'We feel while many people have their own religion, much of it has been inherited, and very few people actually know why they are what they are,' said Jesse Graziani, news service representative for the Jehovah's Witnesses."

Source: The New York Times

On May 24, 2001, The New York Times reported that "a conviction of a Utah man on bigamy charges last week caused anxiety about the state's polygamists, many of whom have grown fearful that prosecutors may now be eager to bring them to trial on the same charges." The conviction may make polygamous families "more reluctant to seek outside help for child abuse, domestic violence, and emergencies." Some members of polygamous families contend that Tom Green presents a false image of polygamy because he has "wives and children in far...

Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

On May 24, 2001, The San Diego Union-Tribune published an op-ed article by Henry Mark Holzer, a First Amendment rights expert and a professor emeritus at Brooklyn Law School, in which he condemned the conviction of Tom Green for polygamy. Holzer wrote that "the First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion." The Supreme Court ruling in a similar nineteenth-century case, Reynolds vs. United States, "reeks with blatant racism." The justices in that case condemned polygamy because it was "almost exclusively a...