Religious Freedom Institute

Writing for Public Discourse, RFI Senior Fellow Paul Marshall distinguishes between the substantive protection of rights, including religious freedom, and the manner in which the different branches of government provide that protection.

Read it: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2026/04/100837/

In an article last week in Providence, RFI’s Paul Marshall calls Allen Hertzke’s new book, Why Religious Freedom Matters: Human Rights and Human Flourishing “a welcome overview of the vital importance of religious freedom by a veteran writer of informed studies on the subject over the last 30 years.”

Read it: https://providencemag.com/2026/04/the-centrality-of-religious-freedom/

RFI joins our colleagues at ADF Legal in celebrating this victory. We were honored to file multiple briefs throughout this case in support of First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a Christian ministry serving women with unplanned pregnancies.
READ: https://shorturl.at/bnByZ.

In ReligionUnplugged, RFI’s Paul Marshall reviewed Jan Jekielek’s book:“Killed to Order: China’s Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America's Biggest Adversary”.

https://religionunplugged.com/news/book-review-a-chilling-case-killed-to-order-and-chinas-organ-harvesting-industry

RFI's Nathan Berkeley commented last week in Christian Scholar’s Review on a growing trend among journalists, tech executives, and others who speak about AI in ways that suggest it has genuine human qualities.

Read it: https://christianscholars.com/our-words-must-reflect-the-sacred-divide-between-human-action-and-ai-function/

Mark your calendar and plan to join us this year! Details to come at www.RFI.org.

RFI looks forward to our Statesmanship and Religious Freedom Seminar in Washington, D.C. in three weeks!

Learn more: https://religiousfreedominstitute.org/sarf/

“Freedom and Faithfulness: A Catholic Guide to Religious Liberty” was created with the Knights of Columbus to illuminate a Catholic understanding of religious freedom.

Download it: https://religiousfreedominstitute.org/freedom-and-faithfulness-a-catholic-guide-to-religious-liberty/

RFI’s President Emeritus Tom Farr commented recently in Public Discourse about the relationship between religious freedom and the American founding in honor of the upcoming America 250 celebrations.

Read it: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2026/04/100782/

In light of the rise in the legalization of assisted su***de, here is a throwback to when RFI’s Nathan Berkeley spoke with the Napa Legal Institute on the issue and how it impacts religious freedom.

Watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVm7jcYraNQ

The Supreme Court has once again shut down Colorado’s attempts to coerce people into expressing only opinions that it agrees with.

Apparently weary of going after bakers, Colorado enacted a law prohibiting therapists from saying anything that would help clients seeking to become comfortable with their biological s*x or to reduce unwanted same-s*x attraction.

But the law did permit them, to facilitate "identity exploration and development” and to give “assistance to a person undergoing gender transition”

In an 8-1 opinion issued yesterday in Chiles v. Salazar, the Court held that Colorado’s law violated the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech by forcing therapists to express the state’s opinion.

“The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country,” the Court stated, and “any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an egregious assault on both of those commitments.”

RFI filed a brief in this case representing Jewish and Muslim therapists, explaining to the Court how Colorado’s law violated the religious liberty of their faiths’ orthodox believers whose clients sought their help.

Judaism and Islam “are built upon long-standing notions of the importance of biological s*x,” our brief argued, and they “require the distinction between male and female to remain clear and constant for the sake of each individual and the community as a whole.”

Read RFI's brief in this case: https://shorturl.at/oyDWU