Religion Dispatches
…oses, to soften the market’s burden on the poor. However, they can also be used to fund religious causes, a fact which medieval regimes sometimes used to usurp zakat funds for expansionary warfare. But modern Islamic economists, by and large, discourage military spending wherever possible. The distribution of charitable giving is one of the many high hopes Islamic economists have for government. There is, in the literature, expectation for a kind…
Read More…nimum wage laws unconstitutional and claims to be a constitutional purist — pay Moffitt for his constitutional, uh, expertise? In the lawsuit against UNC, Moffitt and his co-plaintiffs alleged that the assignment of the Sells text violated both the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment — charging that UNC, a public institution, was not only unconstitutionally promoting Islam by assigning the text but inhibiting non-Muslims…
Read More
…battle against the contraceptive mandate dealt more in falsehoods and hysteria than facts or the nuances of Catholic moral theology. Ironically, it took freeing Notre Dame from the mandate for it to realize it had been free all along….
Read More…in Bustle, Caroline Pate explains: “Seeing someone who’s been publicly accused as an abuser showered with accolades is not only hard for the victim, but it’s also hard to watch for other victims of rape and abuse who are reminded how easy it is for their abusers to walk free.“ That trauma is compounded because public discussions of such high-profile cases have a depressingly predictable, misogynistic script, regardless of whether those discussion…
Read More
…ree with this decision.” Rick Santorum promised that as president he would use the bully pulpit of the White House to lead a “national discussion” on the importance of marriage. “I will stand for the preservation of religious liberty and conscience, to believe what you are called to believe free from persecution.” And from Jeb Bush: Guided by my faith, I believe in traditional marriage. I believe the Supreme Court should have allowed the states to…
Read More…ntended in jest,” Knotts said in a statement. “Bear in mind that this is a freewheeling, anything-goes Internet radio show that is broadcast from a pub. It’s like local political version of ‘Saturday Night Live.’ “Since my intended humorous context was lost in translation, I apologize. I still believe Ms. Haley is pretending to be someone she is not, much as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur.” But, as the Free Times reports…
Read More
…ric. Headlines said he called for a “peaceful resolution” to the conflicts between religious freedom and nondiscrimination. Notably, none of these articles mention either Oaks’ advocacy for a less rigid boundary—“a curtain”—between church and state, or his assertion that Employment Division v. Smith, a 30-year-old religious freedom opinion written by no less than ultra-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, must be overturned. The self-described “mo…
Read More…claim Francis’s apostolic exhortation does not undermine their devotion to free market economics. One of the best examples is the Rev. Robert Sirico of the free market Acton Institute, who released a video attempting to defend his views against Evangelii Gaudium. Best “who, me?” line: “Who is advocating a market without regulations, without law?” On the Eternal Word Television Network program The World Over last week, Bishop Robert Morlino, the bi…
Read More…ects no one. It restores no one’s civil rights. It advances no progressive agenda. May all of us—including Fred Karger—enjoy shame-free holidays and a shame-free 2012….
Read More…nnection with Islam, forced by Islam’s “radical fringe.” Otherwise, we are free to offend, liberally and often. Taboos have been eradicated, limits eliminated. But we’ve heard that all before. Writing in the 1930s, modernist poet and essayist T.S. Eliot begrudged a society with nothing left to blaspheme against: “I am reproaching a world in which blasphemy is impossible.” Eliot believed it had all been done: righteous heroes made into laughingstoc…
Read More