Search Results for:

VIPREG2024 1xbet promo code free spins Venezuela

Will SCOTUS’s New Zeal for “Neutrality” Affect its Decision on the “Muslim Ban”?

…ember of Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission it deemed hostile to religion: Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the holocaust, whether it be—I mean, we—we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use…

Read More

Here’s What the Court Didn’t Decide in Masterpiece

…sons” and, on the other, “the right of all persons to exercise fundamental freedoms,” including the free exercise of religion. And therein lies a second, likely much less welcome upshot for gay rights advocates. Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the Court argued that the Civil Rights Commission unfairly treated Phillips in two ways. His first argument, that the commission permitted other bakeries to refuse service to customers who wished to commission…

Read More

Stem Cell Chronicles: Why Politics and Science Most Certainly Should Not Be Separated

…commitments. The lifting of the ban was a crucial moment in the defense of free speech and the exercise of free expression, said the President. This kind rhetoric is maddening to conservatives and rightly so; it places their moral concerns on a back burner, by suggesting that the articulation of such concern makes one anti-scientific. Don’t get me wrong: President Obama is surely right to announce, and in bold terms, that the nightmarish condition…

Read More

Marriage Vote ‘Transforms’ Not-So-Catholic Ireland; Activist to Malaysian PM – ‘Love Is Not Terrorism’; LGBTs Find Growing Acceptance in Colombia, Not At World Meeting of Families; Global LGBT Recap

…is at the heart of both the arguments to allow gay marriage and those that promote the traditional definition of marriage,” he said. He also asked the Legislature to consider freedom of religion when moving forward with legislation to reflect the Supreme Court’s decision. South Africa: Call for inclusive sex education Advocates for sexuality education in South Africa are urging schools to move beyond the “when a boy loves a girl” narrative that is…

Read More

DeSantis is a No-Show, the Right’s ‘Secret Sauce,’ and Final Thoughts on Pray Vote Stand

…rsonally promised him many years ago that “the court will uphold religious freedom and free exercise…but I don’t know if—but if you [faithful Americans] can uphold it in your daily life and culture.” Brownback seems to tell the crowd that weaponizing the “free exercise” clause will remain a crucial tactic for the Christian Right moving forward. “If you want to have a traditional set of values,” he tells the crowd—“if you just wanna claim life is s…

Read More

Why Hobby Lobby is a Pandora’s Box: Ginsburg v. Alito

…why. This was not a First Amendment case. It was filed under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Understanding this will require a little legal history but I promise to keep it brief. Prior to 1990 The Court ruled on First Amendment Free Exercise claims with a test known as the Sherbert Test. Constitutional rights are not absolute (think laws against human sacrifice). Essentially an infringement on Free Exercise was permitted if: 1) ther…

Read More

The Theological Hijacking of Religious “Freedom”

…law is being used to legislate a vision of freedom that defines religious freedom as “freedom from.” Unlike the early American Baptists, who faced serious persecution, these advocates seek to use the law to protect their vision of worship in the workplace as a purity ritual. It is a vision of religious expression free from interference in the form of difference, free from the conflicting demands of our common lives, and free from any obligation t…

Read More

The Deadly Burqini, Or, What Exactly is an “Islamic Swimsuit”?

…I would like to go swimming but not in a one-piece from Wal-Mart. You are free to disagree with me, but I am also free to feel the way I do. There are people who feel free to go to work without deodorant, or underwear, or appropriate coiffure, with worse consequences than a burqini might have on others. I wish people would take up arms against those offences. In my opinion, given how I perceive swimsuits, it’s extremely unfair and sexist to requi…

Read More

Taking It to the Streets: Anonymous vs. Scientology

…s to cut into Scientology’s income by making these materials available for free (which otherwise Church members must spend significant time and money to obtain), while shutting down official channels like Scientology.org. The anti-Scientology movement has been around for decades (at least since the publication of Paulette Cooper’s The Scandal of Scientology in 1971), but the early Anonymous demonstrations had little if any connection to existing g…

Read More

Who’s to Blame for BP?

…whether we have finally woken up from our dream of perpetually cheap oil, free of all cost, free of all sacrifice. And yet the events in the Gulf call out for confession, for corporate confession and repentance. By corporate I mean BP, of course, but even more importantly I mean our society as a corporate whole. We must move beyond defensiveness and self-righteousness and work toward a cultural consensus that acknowledges the vital work of regula…

Read More