Religion Dispatches
…cts. Paraphrasing the President’s remarks earlier this month, Clarke said: Sanctuary cities are havens for criminal activity. Sanctuary cities provide cover, if you will, for criminal illegal immigrants to continue to prey on, not only law-abiding people, but also illegal immigrants in this country. And here’s why they’re able to do that with impunity. Because, if you are a criminal illegal alien, and you rape, rob, whatever, another illegal alien…
Read More…nts in December 2017 and issued its 7-2 ruling in June. Disappointing partisans on both sides, the Court neither affirmed that antidiscrimination laws apply across the board, nor carved out space for merchants who believe that their faith conflicts with their legal obligations. Instead, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion dodged the fundamental question, while invoking concepts that have long characterized his rulings in gay-rights cases. I…
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…contrast, the Court in Van Orden v. Perry held that it was permissible for Texas to accept and display a Ten Commandments statue donated by a civic organization on the state capitol grounds, alongside 17 other monuments and 22 historical markers. In this case, there was no history indicating a legislative intent to endorse or advance religion. The history of Trump’s two Executive Orders recalls the counties’ efforts in McCreary to water down a rel…
Read More…ections in those areas. South Dakota led the way, followed by Alabama, and Texas’ SB 156. The avalanche of anti-LGBT legislation already passing necessitates a sobering reminder: It’s only March. “Several state legislatures have filed religious refusal laws this year, claiming that their goal is to curb ‘government discrimination’ against religious people or organizations,” said Ashe McGovern, the associate director of Columbia Law School’s Public…
Read More…take effect. A three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas seemed cautiously skeptical of the law’s necessity when they heard oral arguments on the Mississippi case earlier this week. “I think it’s too soon to say that religious exemptions are an effective or legal way to justify LGBTQ discrimination,” Platt told RD in an email exchange today. “Just as courts have in the past refused to grant religious exemptions from laws th…
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…issued on June 26. From the decimation of anti-sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, to the affirmation of our constitutional right to marry someone of the same sex in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, this “Decision Day” at the end of the court’s term has frequently signaled a leap forward for the legal equality of LGBT Americans. And in some ways, June 26, 2017 is upholding that tradition: the Supreme Court today reversed a ruling from the Arka…
Read More…m to be “pro-life.” It also shows a way forward on abortion for Democrats. Texas Rep. Peter Olson this week became the latest Republican to assert that it was perfectly fine for the party’s overhaul of the Affordable Care Act to allow insurers to opt-out of providing maternity care as a basic service, as many conservatives have requested, with the goal of reducing premiums. “We have what’s called an X chromosome, which means we can’t have a baby,”…
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…tion that ultimately passed differed sharply from the original, drafted by Texas pastor Dwight McKissic. Notably, the final resolution abandoned McKissic’s reference to the Biblical Curse of Ham, which has been used by the SBC and others to justify slavery and racial segregation, and his supporting paragraphs highlighting the rise of the “alt-right” and anti-black racism in the upper echelons of American politics and society. The final resolution…
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…I admire most in scholarly writing. What’s your next book? I am currently working on a co-edited volume with Michael Butterworth (at the University of Texas, Austin) on sport and political struggle that we are very excited about….
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…During the annual meeting, Dwight McKissic, a black pastor from Arlington, Texas, initially introduced a resolution condemning white supremacy and the “retrograde ideologies, xenophobic biases and racial bigotries of the so-called alt-right.” Lack of support from the majority of the convention led to division and chaos, and ultimately a much weaker version of the resolution was adopted. This blundered attempt at social progressiveness was further…
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