Dear Religion Clause Readers:
Happy New Year 2019! I hope you continue to find Religion Clause an important resource for news on religious liberty and church-state developments. I continue to strive for objectivity in my posts and to provide links to an abundance of primary source material underlying each post. I am pleased that my regular readers span the political and religious spectrum and include a large number of law school faculty, journalists, clergy, governmental agency personnel, students and others working professionally dealing with church-state relations and religious liberty concerns in the U.S. and around the world.
It has been a year in which some of the most highly charged church-state and religious liberty issues have been a bit defused by judicial and administrative decisions. However, challenges to many of those administrative regulations are still working their way through the courts. Similarly a number of the questions which courts have avoided through narrow decisions will inevitably arise again in the coming years. Also this past year, a number of judicial and legislative developments abroad have continued to reflect interesting approaches to religious liberty concerns.
Thanks again to all of you who are loyal readers-- both those who have followed Religion Clause for years and those of you who have only recently discovered the blog. A special thanks to readers who have quickly sent me leads on recent developments, and to those who have alerted me to mistakes. All of you have made Religion Clause the most recognized and reliable source for keeping informed on the intersection of religion with law and politics. I encourage you to recommend Religion Clause to colleagues, students and friends who might find it of interest. I particularly renew this request this year because, for reasons inexplicable to me, there has been a fall off of page views during the last quarter of 2018 as recorded by the counters I use. Religion Clause is accessible via Twitter and Facebook, as well as through traditional online access and RSS feeds.
I also remind you that the Religion Clause sidebar contains links to a wealth of resources. Please e-mail me if you discover broken links or if there are other links that I should consider adding.
Best wishes for 2019! Feel free to contact me by e-mail (religionclause@gmail.com) in response to this post or throughout the year with comments or suggestions.
Howard M. Friedman
