Plant-Based Legislation for Hospital Patients and Prisoners

Show notes:

In the first segment, our panelists discuss the Maryland Plant-Based Advocates Coalition (MPAC) which is made up of individuals, businesses, trade organizations, educational institutions, non-profit social justice organizations and lawyers in Maryland and around the country who advocate for improving the physical and mental health and environmental well-being of Maryland residents, particularly Maryland’s vulnerable and communities of color through the increased consumption of and access to plant-based foods that are predominately minimally processed.

In the second segment of the show, we discuss the trend of people of the world and the United States becoming more atheist. The world’s most populous country is also the globe’s least religious. According to a new study, 90 percent of all Chinese consider themselves to be atheists or not to be religious. The survey of 65 countries, conducted by Gallup International and the WI Network of Market Research, is based on 63,898 interviews. China tops the list of the world’s least religious nations by far; it’s followed by countries in Europe—about three-fourths of all Swedish and Czech also said that they were either atheists or not religious.

In the third segment, our focus turns to the court case, Carson v. Makin. The Supreme Court issued a ruling in Carson v. Makin that requires the state of Maine to fund religious education at private religious schools as part of its tuition assistance program. The program pays for students to attend private school if their town does not have a public high school. The decision marks the first time that the court has explicitly required taxpayers to support a specifically religious activity—religious instruction—and expands the court’s 2020 ruling in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. There, the court held that the Free Exercise Clause prohibited a state from excluding religious schools from private aid programs “solely because of their religious character.”

Don’t forget to subscribe on Youtube for more content about Faith & Politics!

About the Show: Faith & Politics is a show dedicated to discussing issues surrounding the intersection of Church, State and politics and the examination of whether you are allowing your faith to shape your politics or your politics starting to shape your faith. What do you do when God and government come face to face?

Panelists: Dr. Lawrence Brown Assistant Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for Northeastern Conference of SDA; Dr. Timothy Golden, Professor Philosophy Walla Walla University; Todd McFarland, Associate General Counsel General Conference of SDA; and Tim Schultz, President of 1st Amendment Partnership – nonpartisan organization dedicated to protecting religious freedom for Americans of all faiths based in Washington, DC.

About Us: North American Division Public Affairs & Religious Liberty (PARL) is a ministry dedicated to proclaiming and defending the God-given gift of religious freedom which is integral to our identity as Seventh-day Adventist Christians. Learn more about PARL at www.religiousliberty.info.