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The Bad Religion at the Heart of GOP Healthcare Policy

By Peter Laarman

…poor and without health coverage, that’s all about you. We wash our hands. Free markets: If you are poor, you are perfectly “free” to sleep under a bridge, in the immortal words of Anatole France. But the wealthy are totally free to suck up health care resources via tax-favored health savings accounts. And it goes without saying that the insurance companies and health providers are totally free to suck out your blood. State authority on insurance…

Sanctuary and the Second Amendment: Do Guns Deserve Special Protection?

By Rosalind C. Hughes

…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…

What the Danish Cartoon Controversy Tells Us About Religion, the Secular, and the Limits of the Law

By Winnifred Fallers Sullivan

…in Europe and elsewhere have failed to internalize the democratic value of free speech. Jyllands-Posten, for its part, self-righteously claimed to be heroically rescuing free speech in the face of the fearful self-censorship practiced by Danish writers and artists with respect to criticism of Islam. The incident was portrayed as a clash between the liberal values of an open society and an anti-modern, authoritarian, and superstitious religion. In…

None Means None (Not Atheist, Agnostic, Unbeliever…)

By Elizabeth Drescher

…belief or unbelief. The Pew report on the religiously unaffiliated in the United States does focus substantially on belief, offering a number of significant findings among Nones. I’ve discussed some of these previously here and here, but the pervasiveness of the idea that Nones are unbelievers suggests that the major data highlights bear repeating: 68% of the Unaffiliated in general believe in God or a Universal Spirit Among those who self-identi…

How a Powerful ‘Ex-Gay’ Pastor is Chasing the Latino Vote

By Katherine Stewart

…ersuade their congregations to vote their “biblical” values. A substantial number of Church United gatherings are conducted in the Spanish language, and the organization has spawned at least one affiliate, Alianza de Pastores Unidos de San Diego, whose members minister to largely Spanish-speaking audiences. It wasn’t always this way, of course, and it isn’t going to change overnight. Many of the southern white evangelical groups that remain entren…

Don’t Misread Russell Moore’s Disavowal of “Christian Nation” and Anti-Trump Stance

By Daniel Schultz

…Christian nation,” said Moore. “The idea that God was in covenant with the United States of America in order to bless the United States as a special people, as a New Israel, as a group of people covenanted under Christianity — the answer to that is clearly no.” This no doubt raised some eyebrows. The Christian Post carefully noted its resemblance to the position of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, often an evangelical bête noir…

Satanic or Silly: Does Yale Press Censorship of Cartoons Insult Muslims?

By Daniel Martin Varisco

…s, pro and con, about potentially violent reactions by Muslims against the United States. Klausen argues that protests over the original cartoons in 2005 and 2006 were orchestrated by Muslim extremists with the political goal of destabilizing regimes in a number of Muslim countries. It appears that the experts consulted by Yale University Press have accepted this argument, including the prediction by a former foreign minister of Nigeria that publi…

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…

‘Religious Freedom’ Rally Sets Stage for 1st Amendment Collision

By Sarah Posner

…xactly what the Establishment Clause prohibits. The Stand Up for Religious Freedom rallies emphasized the Free Exercise Clause and their own “religious freedom,” but they ignore, most certainly not by accident, the principle upon which Judge Stearns’ decision rests: “[t]o insist that the government respect the separation of church and state is not to discriminate against religion; indeed, it promotes a respect for religion by refusing to single ou…

Global Religious Right Asks ‘How Far Can We Get?’; And More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…d to relocate to Romania. They have argued that the refusal violates their freedom of movement within the European Union. ADF International, the global arm of the US-based religious right legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, urged the court not to rule in the couple’s favor, which it said would amount to “EU-wide imposition of same-sex marriage.” Italy: Conservative religious activist charged with taking money to squelch human rights inquiry Bu…