A sample of attacks in the US, over the last few years, on the expression of Christian belief in public:
(1)Ford Contractor Says He Was Fired For Speaking Against Company’s Support of Homosexuality, Christian News Network, February 8, 2015.
Thomas Banks, a design and release engineer with Ford Motor Company was fired for violating Ford’s anti-harassment policy in 2014, when he expressed his disapproval of homosexuality in Christian terms and suggested that endorsement of it should have no place in the company newsletter.
(2)Three-sentence letter to the ‘NYT’ results in Yale chaplain’s resignation, Mondoweiss, September 7, 2014.
Jewish students and the Board of Governors of Yale forced the resignation of Father Bruce Shipman, Yale’s Episcopalian chaplain, a long-time anti-war activist. At issue was Shipman’s letter to the New York Times, expressing his belief that anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere was the result of the lack of resolution to problems like the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the ongoing carnage in Gaza.
(3) IRS to Monitor Sermons as Part of Settlement with Atheists, Freedom Outpost, July 25, 2014.
A 2012 lawsuit by the Freedom From Religion Foundation was settled when the IRS agreed to monitor church sermons for evidence that they were taking position on politics, even though this kind of monitoring is completely unconstitutional.
[The tax-exempt status of churches is given to them as churches, not as non-profits. It is non-profits that lose their tax-exemption when they engage in political advocacy, not churches.]
(4) University Tells Student To Remove Cross Necklace, Fox News, July 2, 2013
A northern California university student was told to remove or hide her cross while she was working for a student association at a fair for incoming freshmen, lest it make incoming students uncomfortable. The university later apologized.
(5) Arizona Pastor Arrested, Jailed for Holding Bible Study In Home, Fox News, July 11, 2012
Pastor Michael Salmon was jailed for 60 days and forced to pay a $12,180 fine for holding Bible studies in his class. The Phoenix city prosecutor said the pastor’s home was not zoned as a church and he did not have a permit.
(6) Vanderbilt to Christian student organization: Drop commitment to Jesus Christ for leaders, Christian Legal Society, April 20, 2o12.
In 2011, Vanderbilt university officials told Christian student groups to no longer require their leaders to have a commitment to Jesus Christ or lose their recognition on campus as student associations.
This was part of the university’s “all comers” policy that prevents any ideological discrimination by any group.
For eg., To comply with the policy, Democrat organizations must allow a Republican to apply for leadership positions and vice-versa.
The university stated that religious organizations were welcome as long as their leaders didn’t need to profess anything in particular and their creedal statements did not govern their actions.
Affirming Christian doctrine was as discriminatory as racial segregation, said officials.
As a result, in 2014, 14 Vanderbilt campus religious organizations lost their status.
Harvard has rejected Vanderbilt’s position on creedal groups and permits them.
But Tufts has followed Vanderbilt.
And this year, California State University banned Christian student clubs from recruiting, defunded them, and took them off university websites and directories.