Liberty score

States like Massachusetts and Michigan are among the most hostile to faith-based nonprofits in America, while states like Alabama and Indiana have some of the nation’s most robust protections for such groups. That’s according to a new report from a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit, the Napa Legal Institute.

In its second Faith and Freedom Index, released Oct. 25, Napa evaluated 14 types of state laws to assess all 50 states’ “friendliness” toward faith-based nonprofits. Napa Vice President Mary Margaret Bush said in a press release that faith-based groups are especially important at a time when Americans “are seeing escalating attacks on religious freedom and ­conscience rights across the country.”

Napa used two categories, religious liberty and regulatory freedom, to score individual states. In Nevada’s case, for instance, the state’s constitution includes a Blaine Amendment that restricts religious organizations’ ability to accept federal grants, resulting in a religious liberty score of just 29 percent. But the state scored 67 percent in regulatory freedom, since it does not subject nonprofits to complex audits and regularly grants tax exemption status to 501(c)(3) groups.

Even if a governor is unfriendly to faith-based groups, a state might still score well on the index, since Napa weighs state laws rather than administration policies. California’s administration isn’t necessarily favorable to faith-based nonprofits, Napa noted, yet state law protects religious nonprofits by exempting them from employer nondiscrimination laws.

Although 27 states and Washington, D.C., scored less than 40 percent in the religious freedom category, the index describes this year’s findings as “encouraging” since Iowa, Nebraska, and Utah enacted Religious Freedom Restoration Acts within the past year.

Wissam Haddad YouTube

Australian Jews sue over Islamic “hate”

A group representing Jews in Australia has taken an Islamic influencer to court for anti-­Semitic sermons he posted online last year. On Oct. 28, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) announced a ­federal lawsuit against Wissam Haddad (aka Abu Ousayd) for derogatory sermons he recorded at the Sydney-based Al Madina Dawah Center.

The ECAJ accuses Haddad of describing Jewish people as “vile” and “treacherous.” In one of his sermons, Haddad suggested that the deaths of Jews in the Israel-Hamas war were prophesied in the Hadith, a collection of Muhammad’s teachings. The ECAJ’s lawsuit claims Haddad violated the country’s Racial Discrimination Act, a 1975 law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race. Unlike in the United States, Australian law does not guarantee freedom of expression as a fundamental right.

If the Federal Court of Australia finds Haddad violated the act, some of his speeches could be removed from the internet, and the court might bar him from uploading similar content in the future. —B.M.