Religion Dispatches
…the state to insist on its way, and for them to gain their administrative freedom, would be to abrogate that curious tax exemption for an institution as wealthy as the Catholic Church in a time of real fiscal crisis. But clearly, this would lend itself to the very Big Brother vision of the federal government that created this controversy in the first place. Instead, President Obama, ever the patient compromiser, attempted to create a new distinct…
Read More…the memo was “based on a far-fetched interpretation of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” In a 2010 letter, CARD charged that continued reliance on the 2007 OLC memo “threatens core civil rights and religious freedom protections” and that the administration’s vague case-by-case approach “raises the problem of religious selectivity and provides scant opportunity for transparency or accountability. Following this approach indefinitely whi…
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…Indeed, the tradition of sacred spaces as gun-free (weapon-free, violence-free, force-free) zones makes the use of sanctuary language in recent “Second Amendment Sanctuary” legislation curious. The turn from the use of “sanctuary” from its origins in restricting vengeance, violent enforcement, and weaponry to the protection of gun-keeping within the sanctuary borders, while rhetorically brilliant, feels particularly cynical when research shows th…
Read More…Restoration Act, not on the plaintiffs’ claims under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise, Establishment, and Free Speech clauses. Under that standard, the court determined that the Newlands and Hercules would suffer a substantial burden on their free exercise of religion should they be required to provide contraception coverage under their self-insurance that that provide to the company’s employees, and that the government had not implemented the…
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…s.” According to section 2, parties that “seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany shall be unconstitutional.” Section 3 excludes from state financing parties that “are oriented towards an undermining or abolition of the free democratic basic order or an endangerment of the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany.” Judgement as to the constitutionality of poli…
Read More…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…
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…’ shall be imposed on the people of these United States. We support a debt-free, interest-free money system.” Congressional Tea Partiers Vow to Challenge the Fed Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Fed, which passed the House earlier this year but didn’t become law, is expected to be even more popular in the incoming Congress. There’s even speculation that the House Republicans might mount a challenge to the whole system, and Rand Paul is promising to jo…
Read More…isn’t covered because their boss thinks it’s tantamount to murder–dignity didn’t enter into the equation. We’re focused on the bakers and the caterers, in part because the religious right has made such a spectacle of them, with hyperbolic pronouncements about the end of religious freedom and free speech. It’s easy to forget that in most states, as well as under federal law, LGBT people are left unprotected in public accommodations, housing, and em…
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…cause of violence: poverty.” Phelps argues that coinciding with the color-coded areas of the Louisville maps Bevin displayed at his meeting are African-American neighborhoods devastated by decades of national, state, and local policies favoring white communities and leaving black West Louisville to fend for itself. Jim Crow laws. The G.I. Bill. Bank redlining. Social security. All designed for whites to prosper—but not blacks. Systemic, governmen…
Read More…oppression cannot be far behind. Conversely, if a God is disclosed who is free to come and go, free from and even against the regime, free to hear and even answer slave cries, free from all proper godness as defined by the empire, then it will bear decisively upon sociology because the freedom of God will surface in the brickyards and manifest itself as justice and compassion. That’s the God I know and love, one who provokes real change on behalf…
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