Attacks on religious liberty have jumped by 133 percent in the last five years. And the attacks appear to be in several areas of society.
The sobering news comes from First Liberty Institute, a conservative legal group. Each year they produce a report on the number of attacks on religious liberty; in the last year, there has been a 15 percent increase.
First Liberty CEO and Chief Counsel Kelly Shackelford said, “It’s school cases, it’s military cases, it’s open public places cases, employment cases. Unfortunately, it is not [just] one particular area [of society], it’s across the board. It’s just the tip of the iceberg because what’s published is really a fraction of what is actually happening.”
Included in the cases is a report of Alexia Palma, a Houston woman who was fired from her job as a health clinic worker in 2016. Palma was allowed to opt out of teaching a class on birth control because of her Catholic faith, but later she was told that she must teach it.
She said she was called into a meeting and told that she needed to put her religious beliefs aside if she wanted to continue being a health educator.
Earlier this year the Family Research Council released a report finding a 76 percent increase in religious freedom violations.
It highlighted the case of geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling. He was denied a routine request to collect soil and rock samples from the Grand Canyon because of his beliefs on creation.