Source: The Washington Post

On March 15, 2001, The Washington Post reported on changes in three episcopal churches in the Baileys Crossroads area in Virginia that reflect the growing ethnic diversity in the area. The predominantly older, white congregations of St. Patrick's Episcopal Church and St. Paul's Episcopal Church are now expanding to include many African and Asian immigrants. St. Paul's has a new Vietnamese minister and has changed its name to St. Patrick's Episcopal Church (Anglo-Vietnamese). When Holy Cross Korean Episcopal Church lost the space...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On March 15, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported on the annual Return of the Swallows festival at Mission San Juan Capistrano in Capistrano, California. "Today, the event has grown far beyond bird watching, with three days of festivities that also commemorate the 200-year history of the mission...Members of the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, whose ancestors helped build the mission," play a significant role in the festivities.

Source: The Baltimore Sun

On March 13, 2001, The Baltimore Sun reported that Baltimore's "Mayor Martin O'Malley called on religious leaders yesterday to support his faith-based initiative, Baltimore Rising, which will connect 300 mentors in inner-city churches with 100 youths deemed most likely to kill or be killed by violent crime...Solving the crime, violence and drug addiction in the inner city 'requires a spiritual element...,' O'Malley said."

Source: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

On March 11, 2001, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported that "the Bush administration is defending its faith-based initiative against a string of attacks from...the Christian right." Their fears include strings being attached to government funds, and fears that some faiths will be discriminated against.

Source: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

On March 11, 2001, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported that "the White House believes President Bush will pick up significant support for his faith-based initiatives" from "black churches -- despite opposition from some African-American leaders." GOP pollster Frank Luntz calls the faith-based initiatiave "the first successful effort I have seen to penetrate the black mind-set that has worked...They are the most faith-based segment of the population there is." Some African-American leaders and...

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

On March 11, 2001, The Columbus Dispatch that the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio Foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court in Cleveland claiming that a poster of the Ten Commandments in a Richland County courtroom violates separation of church and state. Judge James DeWeese says he will "stand his ground over the display [in his courthouse], which includes the Bill of Rights, and sayings about the law from Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and James Madison."

Source: The Boston Globe

On March 9, 2001, The Boston Globe reported on civil-rights lawyer Juliette Kayyem, who is executive director of a project on counterterrorism and domestic preparedness at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She is waging what seems "like a one-woman war within the Justice Department against the use of secret evidence... Acting on secret evidence, US officials now seize, detain, and deport foreigners suspected of terrorist activities." The National Commission on Terrorism, the congressionally appointed panel she sits on, "...

Source: The Washington Post

On March 8, 2001, The Washington Post reported that John DiIulio "lashed out at critics on the religious right who oppose President Bush's plan to provide government funds to religious charities, deepening a rare rift between the new administration and once-loyal social conservatives...Many religious conservatives have criticized the Bush 'faith-based initiative' because they believe government interference would compromise churches' spirituality."

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bush-Courts-Right-To-Back-Program-But-Falwell-2944480.php

On March 8, 2001, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that "John...

Source: The Kansas City Star

On March 7, 2001, The Kansas City Star reported on the founder of HateBusters, an organization that arranged the first of a monthly series of visits by Christians to the houses of worship of three other major religions in Kansas City, the Hindu Temple, Beth Shalom Synagogue and the Islamic Center." The purpose of the trips, said the founder, is to ask, "How are we all as people of faith like each other, and how can we become neighbors?"

Source: Los Angeles Times

On March 5, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that, "while religious clubs still are being challenged in the courts across the nation,...outside the South, Orange County may be the epicenter of a growing national phenomenon of religious groups on high school campuses." To preserve the line between church and state, many school districts do not allow adults to approach students about forming religious organizations. A student leader of one of these groups, however, said "the focus is not so much on converting students as on...

Source: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

On March 5, 2001, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported that "a California high school valedictorian who was barred from giving a graduation speech in which he planned to ask the audience to 'accept God's love' and live by 'Jesus' example' lost a Supreme Court appeal today... The proposed speech was 'a religious sermon' and allowing it as part of the graduation ceremony 'would amount to government sponsorship of, and coercion to participate in, particular religious practices,' the appeals court said."

Source: Los Angeles Times

On March 4, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported on ground-blessing ceremonies for a new church, the first in Southern California given a Vietnamese name: Our Lady of La Vang. The new church replaces Our Lady of Lourdes. "The name...has been praised by leaders of Orange County's large Vietnamese Catholic community [the second-largest ethnic community behind Latinos in the Diocese of Orange]. But it has stirred controversy within Our Lady of Lourdes' mostly Latino congregation...In 2000, an average of 23,500 parishioners attended...

Source: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

On March 4, 2001, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported on the Community Family Life Services center, sponsored by First Trinity Lutheran Church in Washington, D.C. As a typical faith-based charity, the center offers insights into [Bush's] contention "that faith-based groups are more innovative, nimble and successful than government in meeting the needs of people living in poverty... It also provides reassurance about...fears that faith-based groups might try to convert people seeking assistance, or...

Source: Star Tribune

On March 4, 2001, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that "the Playhouse Theater in Camp Snoopy in the heart of the Mall of America is...going to be the home of the River Church," which is affiliated with the Baptist General Conference. "The church is allowed to have hosts in the mall to help direct people to the Camp Snoopy sanctuary. But the hosts are not to evangelize...Still, [the Rev. Chris] Reinertson said he hopes that people who have come to the mall to shop will happen upon the church in the 500-seat theater at Camp Snoopy...