Religion Dispatches
…n need. But he is “pro-life” as well, and is of course, pro-gun, living in Wyoming. For Henrichsen, government isn’t the enemy, but a chance to serve his fellow Wyomingites in congress, representing them rather the big money interests that have bankrolled Cynthia Lummis. It is also a way to talk about who he is as a Mormon. I think he’d make a fine candidate for the next round of “And I’m a Mormon” spots whether or not he is elected to congress. W…
Read More…g, the Supreme Court justices spent a great deal of time questioning the lawyers in the case about whether corporations have a religious conscience, and whether Congress intended to protect it when enacting the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). What was most striking, though, was how all three female justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, fired the most challenging questions at the companies’ lawyer, Paul Cle…
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…te segregation and economic favoritism. When I spoke with Rothstein on the phone, he underscored the long-term effects of this last policy. During the 1940s and 1950s, suburban subdivisions were built in St. Louis, and throughout the country, using federal loans stipulating that no homes be sold to African Americans. Priced at about $125,000 in today’s dollars, these were affordable—with a mortgage—to working class families, black or white. Yet bl…
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…ugh the Virginia legislature by James Madison in 1786. The following year, Madison served as the lead author of the Constitution, and in 1789, as the lead author of the First Amendment. Thus, the Virginia Statute is rightly understood to be the clearest statement of the intentions of the Framers in matters of the right relationship between the individual, religion, and government. Historian John Ragosta’s thumbnail history of the bill at the Thoma…
Read More…gree intentional homicide for allegedly attempting to kill the doctor at a Madison Planned Parenthood. Lang was arrested Wednesday night when his gun went off in his motel room not far from the Planned Parenthood clinic that he planned to attack Thursday. Lang told a Madison police officer at the Motel 6, 1754 Thierer Road, that he had a gun “to lay out abortionists because they are killing babies,” according to the criminal complaint filed Thursd…
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…on.” Following his historic legislative victory with the Virginia Statute, Madison traveled to Philadelphia in 1787 where he was a principal author of the Constitution, and, two years later, of the First Amendment. Unsurprisingly, the Virginia Statute has long been understood by scholars and by the U.S. Supreme Court to be an authoritative source for the meaning of religious freedom. While Madison, Jefferson and the seminal documents they helped f…
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…working around the clock coordinating the interfaith religious response in Madison. Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative rabbis representing all of the Jewish congregations in Madison have spoken out against Governor Walker’s legislation and are circulating a Letter “to Rabbinic Colleagues and Friends”: As rabbis this an affront to our values—the Jewish mandate to protect workers, as well as the poor and needy among us… And it is an affront…
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…ment of 50,000, as if the faithful at church. The devotion was audible, as tickets were distributed to friends of the Cuban government and not through a public sale. Here the religious nature of the Cuban sporting event is acknowledged only to be dismissed as inauthentic. The patriotic, quasi-religious crooning is suspicious because of its apparent production by the Cuban government, which distributed tickets to friends. Morosi recognizes religiou…
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…ust be made to enforce it. In the April 2007 priesthood session, a musical number was provided by a men’s chorus. The chorus was selected and trained by Brigham Young University professor Rosalind Hall, who also chose the music for the choir—but Hall was not allowed to attend the performance; instead, she was replaced by a male colleague, Ronald Staheli, for that one event. In fact, Hall was not even allowed to be in the conference hall to hear he…
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…me shows), even when something unintentional happens—say you know that the airline didn’t intentionally keep you from flying—the question that humans often pose is, “Was this preventable?” “Could they have done something to prevent that?” And that’s when we wonder—well, who could have done something to prevent it? The person at the counter? The pilot? The CEO? We don’t know, and so we have, in a sense, a certain disorientation and don’t know to wh…
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