On my most recent Bloggingheads program, I spoke with constitutional scholar Marie Ashe of Suffolk University Law School, about the history of the American conception of, and Supreme Court jurisprudence on religious freedom and what that means for women. Ashe has argued in two law review articles that the more case law (and statutory law) has expanded the religious liberty of mainstream religion, the less it has expanded legal protections for women.
If you’re interested in these issues, as I am, I really encourage you to watch the whole thing.
If you are a history buff, though, you might be fascinated by Ashe’s work on the 1638 trial of religious dissident Anne Hutchinson, and what it says about American conceptualization of religious freedom:
(In our Hutchinson discussion, I give a shout-out to RD contributor Lauri Lebo, who wrote about how in the Texas textbook wars, revisionists sought to excise mention of Hutchinson from public school history books because she “‘didn’t accomplish anything except getting herself exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for making trouble.’ (emphasis added).”)
If you’re interested in more recent developments, in this clip we discuss how while Roe and church-state separation have been eroded, the government has become more protective of religious freedom for organizations and individuals claiming conscience objections:
And if you’re curious about whether the Catholic organizations that have sued the Department of Health and Human Services over the contraception mandate have a case, watch this:
Housekeeping note: apologies for the light posting of late; I’m at work on a longer project, which has taken time away from blogging. On last week’s Bloggingheads, I spoke with Open Zion blogger Emily Hauser about Israel-Palestine. You can watch that one here.
