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Grassley Staff Memo on Televangelists Makes Clear Religious Right Opposition to Government Oversight

By Sarah Posner

…t of the religious right which deems it an unconstitutional restriction on free speech and religious freedom. The rule, it’s true, is rarely enforced by the IRS, as the memo notes. But if it’s repealed, and churches are free from the possibility of an IRS investigation for endorsing candidates, churches would become even more politicized, and free to use their tax-exempt status to do so. UPDATE: Michael Batts, who has been appointed to lead the EC…

WaPo OpEd: Pope Francis and the Koch Bros Love and Serve the Poor Together

By Patricia Miller

…ess by supporting organizations that “bear the common mission of advancing free enterprise and free societies.” The Saemans write that “promoting limited government alongside the Kochs is an important part of heeding Pope Francis’s call to love and serve the poor.” This despite Francis’ unequivocal statements almost exactly a year ago in opposition to the “free enterprise” ideology: “Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assum…

Oklahoma Bill Would Violate Basic Freedoms, Rewrite the Ten Commandments

By Andrew L. Seidel

…orship every god from every holy book. Olsen’s commandments would prohibit free expression and art by outlawing the creation of graven images; prohibit free speech by making it illegal to take the Lord’s name in vain; and, per the tenth commandment, it would criminalize thought (potentially condoning slavery and the treatment of women as chattel as it does so). Instead of spending time paring down what they claim is the holy word of their god to c…

Ebola and Us: The American Roots of Liberia’s Trauma

By Peter Laarman

…shed active chapters at two-thirds of the colleges and universities in the free states, and their quarrels with the abolitionists were no longer polite and academic. The ACS types took up mob violence against African American schools and churches and raided antislavery institutions. In Connecticut they blocked the opening of a black college (the first of its kind) in New Haven, and they persecuted Prudence Crandall’s school for African American gi…

A Bill Passes, Westboro Baptists Shrug

By Rebecca Barrett-Fox

…the two key issues at stake in its signing: First Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion and to free speech: I am very pleased to be signing this bill into law. The graves of our veterans are hallowed ground. And obviously we all defend our Constitution and the First Amendment and free speech, but we also believe that when men and women die in the service of their country and are laid to rest, it should be done with the utmost honor an…

Bachmann Weaves Own Salvation Story into Christian Nation Mythology

By Sarah Posner

…settling,” by knowing Jesus Christ “in his fullness” can someone be truly free, free in the way that Jesus intended when he “set captives free” by the founding of the country. It’s all wrong, of course, historically, constitutionally. But Bachmann found the precise sweet spot where testimony and Christian American exceptionalism mythology intersect. Bachmann took her speech even further, invoking the biblical story of Joshua and Caleb, who led a…

How America’s Charismatic Christianity Helped Fuel the Fantasyland Presidency of Donald Trump

By Eric C. Miller

…, but there was certainly a great amount of freedom—and not just religious freedom. There was freedom to sell anything you want, to buy anything you want, to be anything you want, to believe anything you want, and to create any kind of religion you want. You may be persecuted for that, as the Mormons were, but if you’re willing to take on that risk, go nuts! So, yes—because we could, we did. That’s part of it. But I’m skeptical that this fully exp…

What To Do When Fred Phelps Arrives in Your Neighborhood

By Susan Henking

…picketing in my imagination allows those of us who favor free speech (even free horrifying speech—remember Skokie and the Nazis) to express our outrage without giving up our commitment to free speech and, indeed, to express our outrage without being as offensive as those we find despicable. Not to mention avoiding the violence. And, of course, fantasy picketing gets around the many ways our culture has come to limit dissent in recent years: from W…

Aasif Mandvi on Islamophobia, Acting, and the Long Shadow of Jon Stewart

By Haroon Moghul

…a writer, a comedian, in a lot of creative spaces. What’s the line between free speech and bigotry? Wow. What is the line between free speech and bigotry? Look, there’s always going to be free speech, and it’s a fundamental right. We are allowed to speak our minds. But bigotry will always exist—there will always be a certain amount of prejudice, and I don’t think you can eradicate that. What I wanted to do was address some of that prejudice, the m…

Yeshiva is Likely to Win Its Battle Against LGBTQ Group — But Do Jewish Orgs Really Want to Empower a Militant Christian Movement?

By Orit Avishai

…, in recent years, this sweeping illiberal agenda has weaponized religious freedom to promote a militant, literal, and illiberal Christian ideology that embraces Christianity as a bedrock American identity. This agenda not only claims a special place for religion in American culture but demands that the laws of the land be based on Christian morals, ethics, and history. In other words, it has its sights set on the rights and liberties not of relig…