Religious Freedom on the March- Alberto Gonzales [View All]

[Olney Blue]

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070220/NEWS03/70220074/1001/NEWS


Tuesday, 02/20/07
New U.S. religious liberties project launched, U.S. Attorney General announces to Southern Baptists

By ANITA WADHWANI
Staff Writer

The U.S. will establish a new Religious Freedom Task Force and step up enforcement efforts as part of an expanded push to protect against religious discrimination, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez announced today in Nashville at a gathering of Southern Baptist leaders.

The Department of Justice’s “First Freedom Project” will review religious discrimination complaints, hold seminars to educate religious leaders about how to file complaints and launch a Web site with information on religious liberty laws, Gonzalez announced.

“One of our most cherished freedoms…is our religious liberties,” Gonzalez told the gathering of about 100 Southern Baptists at the denomination’s national headquarters in downtown Nashville. “Nothing defines us more as Americans.”
But, he said, religious discrimination is “an area of law that has not always been given sufficient attention by our government.”

Gonzales's announcement was met with skepticism by local civil libertarians.
If the First Freedom Project was meant to protect the religious freedoms of all Americans, why was it was announced only to a room full of Southern Baptists, asked Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the Tennessee branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.


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Separation of church and state be damned.......