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The Roberts Court’s “Special Solicitude” for Corporations

…Smith jurisprudence,” she wrote. RFRA didn’t expand the scope of religious freedom rights, and in the case law there is “no support for the notion that free exercise rights pertain to for-profit corporations.” There’s a reason for that, Ginsburg maintained. While the Constitution and the courts have long recognized a “special solicitude” for religious organizations, there is no such solicitude for commercial entities. The reason for that is “hardl…

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Krapp’s Last Tweet: The Rise (and Fall?) of Privilege in the Digital Economy

…f online content, a number of news articles did manage to connect the dots between Ferguson and the discriminatory housing policies put in place after World War II. As I have argued before, new technologies tend to augment existing systems of privilege. Yet there is reason to hope that digital media may yet catalyze a more just future. Dear Prudence Before jumping from his capsule, with all eyes watching, Baumgartner remarked, “Sometimes you have…

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Beverly Cleary, Author of the Ramona Series, Understood Children, Shoes, School, Words, and How it Feels to be Heard, or Misunderstood

…arted the third grade . . . Grown-ups did not understand that summers were free from grades.” She also catches grown-ups speaking earnest nonsense. Virginia Lee Burton’s 1939 classic Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel may be about, as her teacher tells her, “digging the basement of the town hall,” but Ramona knows that her pressing question, namely, “how did Mike Mulligan go to the bathroom when he was digging the basement of the town hall?” stand…

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Bloody Religious Conflict on the Way Out?

…uraging: Around the world, we are seeing the growth of the American-style “free religious marketplace.” Religions are gradually becoming commodities that private individuals can accept or reject at their own discretion. The various religions must compete for the consumer loyalty, which means they must adapt to consumer preference. This is the inevitable result of the privatization of religion, as Berger explained in The Sacred Canopy. And when rel…

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Channeling T.S. Eliot, Ross Douthat Fears The Loss of Taboo

…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…

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Former AIPAC Spokesperson Rallies Conservatives to Attack CAP, Media Matters as Anti-Semitic

…he listserv (which, with a brilliant lack of self-awareness, is called the Freedom Community): This kind of anti-Israel sentiment is so fringe it’s support by CAP is outrageous, but at least it is out in the open now — as is their goal – clearly applauded by revolting allies like the pro-HAMAS and anti-Zionist/One State Solution advocate Ali Abunumiah and those who accuse pro-Israel Americans of having ”dual loyalties” or being ”Israel-Firsters” –…

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How “Gratitude” Underwrites Inequality, Power, and Exclusion

…elites could pit the masses against each other, creating a vertical divide between the people in place of a horizontal divide between the classes. That’s how it stops being a democratizing force and starts to insulate the status quo. Gratitude operates in a similar way, with similar potentials. When we find ourselves in a position of owing—and people in a democratic society always owe something to other people—we may become vulnerable to control….

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The Mistaken Assumption Behind Employers’ “Right” to Not Cover Contraception

…onfusion now dogs the debate over employers’ First Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion and the new insurance mandates under the Affordable Care Act, which include birth control. The argument that seems to be winning in court is that employers who oppose the use of birth control for religious reasons should not have to provide it to their workers. Only in a world in which labor has been alienated from production, however, can such an…

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What’s Islamophobia, and Do I Have It?

…d used today to bully, circumscribe, panic, or oppress.  Americans deserve better. Certainly bigotry is profoundly contrary to the values we aspire to. More pragmatically, Islamophobia is just plain bad for America. If we want to understand Islam, we should have accurate information—we wouldn’t want those who keep our country safe relying on people who have no idea what they’re talking about.   If we want to know how to navigate a tumultuous Musli…

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