Russell Senate Office Building by Architect of the Capitol (US-PD). During his second term, President Barack Obama attempted to restart the Israel-Palestine peace process, following in the footsteps of every president since George H.W. Bush. Like other attempts, it fell apart quickly, much to the frustration of all. In April of 2014, then U.S. Secretary…
Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City via Wikimedia Commons (CC0-01). Washington’s controversial Senate Bill 5375, “An ACT Relating to the duty of clergy to report child abuse and neglect,” scheduled to go into effect on July 27, 2025, removes the legal protection for Roman Catholic priests under the seal of confession when dealing with mandatory sexual…
Photo of Mike Nichols at the National Film Society Convention by Alan Light (CC BY 2.0). In the fall of 1966, Hollywood studio magnate Jack Warner and a young first-time director, Mike Nichols, faced independent, but interlocking conundrums. The trouble centered on the film adaptation of Edward Albee’s award-winning play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—the…
Australian House of Representatives by JJ Harrison (CC BY-SA 3.0). The constitutional protections for religious freedom and against the establishment of state religions in the United States and Australia bear a striking similarity. Under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, approved as part of the Bill of Rights in 1791, “Congress shall make…
John Trumbull’s painting, Declaration of Independence, (PD-Art). In a recent newsletter to Atlantic subscribers, editor Jeffrey Goldberg refers to the cover story by Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer. They attempt to answer, he says, a simple question: How did Trump rise from political ruin in 2021 to seize the commanding heights of government and the world…
Image by David Geitgey Sierralupe on Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 2.0) The United States has a policing problem. American police have killed over 1,000 people each year for the past decade and kill at a far higher rate than police in any other wealthy democracy. They use force on over 300,000 people per year, injuring approximately…
Saint Mary Magdalene Church of Albi, France by Krzysztof Golik (CC BY-SA 2.0). The following essays are reprinted and adapted on Canopy Forum in collaboration with the journal, Australian Journal of Law and Religion, a biannual electronic publication that is free and open access. Read more essays here. You can also read this essay and others in the…
Nevado del Ruiz from Manizales, Colombia by Sebastian Jiménez (CC BY-SA 2.0). This article is part of our virtual symposium and essay series, “Masking Religious Freedom Violations.” Read more here. This essay is part of the “Masking Religious Freedom Violations” symposium organized by Canopy Forum and the IIRF. The following sections present the proposed and…
Photo of Cocora Valley, Colombia by Fernanda Fierro on Unsplash. This article is part of our virtual symposium and essay series, “Masking Religious Freedom Violations.” Read more here. Preliminary Contributions of Public Policy Colombia is one of the few countries worldwide with a public policy exclusively dedicated to ensuring the right to religious freedom. This…
Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kiev, Ukraine by Juan Antonio Segal (CC BY-SA 4.0). This article is part of our series on Transnational Christian Nationalism, and its impact on politics, the rule of law, and religious freedom. If you’d like to explore other articles in this series, click here. Post-election, no one in the U.S. or abroad is entirely…