The South Dakota Legislature will be considering a large number of important bills Wednesday including one to protect religious liberty and the right of conscience, to clarify that boys are boys and girls are girls, gambling, property rights and more.

Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Matt Sharp will testify Wednesday before the South Dakota House State Affairs Committee on two proposed laws: HB 1107, which would “ensure government nondiscrimination in matters of religious beliefs and moral convictions,” and HB 1112, which would establish birth certificates as the primary standard “in identifying a student’s sexual identity for purpose of participation in high school activities.”

The American church has a problem. It’s one part fear, one part confusion and one part apathy. Pastors, priests and rabbis have long swallowed the false notion that all things religious and all things political are somehow mutually exclusive – that never the twain shall meet.

Muslims are offended by Christianity and Christians are offended by Islam. But while Christians seek to win (voluntary) believers by spreading the gospel (“make disciples of every nation”), Muslims seek to win a holy war (jihad) for a world “peace” in which all believers are Muslim (whether voluntarily or by force).

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to take up a case that addresses the question of whether states can exhibit hostility to religion by prohibiting churches and church-run organizations from participating in state programs solely because the groups are religious.

A New York court Thursday affirmed a Division of Human Rights ruling against an upstate couple for declining to coordinate a same-sex wedding ceremony in their own backyard.

Several religious non-profit organizations filed an opening brief Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court in consolidated lawsuits against the Obama administration’s abortion-pill mandate and its religious non-profit options, all of which force the groups to violate their faith.

Last Tuesday, Kentucky’s new governor, Matt Bevin, issued an executive order that eliminates the names of all county clerks from marriage licenses and protects the unalienable constitutional rights and religious freedoms of Kim Davis and all other clerks in Kentucky.

Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Thursday to the town of Bethlehem after it removed a “Merry Christmas” sign from town property based on unfounded fears that it violates the U.S. Constitution. The letter explains that allowing the sign does not violate the Constitution or any other law.

As most Americans celebrate Thanksgiving today, stop a moment to consider who the Pilgrims were-that group of people we typically look back to as the originators of today’s Thanksgiving celebration.