Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.
Donate
A man who ran an Alabama day care registered under a church’s name was convicted of sexual abuse. But the state Supreme Court later ruled that the church and day care weren’t connected.
An Alabama lawmaker has introduced a bill to license the more than 900 religious day cares in the state that currently operate without almost no government oversight.
The federal government, several state legislatures and local health departments have decided that granting faith-based day cares too much freedom puts children at risk.
For the first time in the state’s history, an Alabama lawmaker is introducing a bill to overturn the state’s religious exemption for faith-based day cares.
She’s been called a crook. A con artist. A snake in the grass. But in Alabama, the only thing that really matters to state regulators is that the day care operator calls herself a Christian.
Physically punishing children is outlawed in almost all day cares in America. But four states offer an exception for religious providers, and Reveal found that hundreds of those day cares exploited the rules.
Thousands of religious day cares across America legally are allowed to run their facilities with little government oversight. But freedom from regulation can come at a high price for children. And when things go wrong, parents have little recourse.
Here’s a quick rundown of the major findings from our running investigation into the religion’s efforts to hide child sex abuse.
Across the country, lawmakers have carved out exemptions from common rules for religious groups, ranging from immigration to land use.
In this episode of Reveal, we explore the tricky territory of religious freedom and how different groups have exploited this loophole across the U.S.
