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Establishment Clause, Meet Free Exercise

…events.” In January 2009, principal Frank Lay and athletic director Robert Freeman were accused of violating the consent decree when “Lay asked Freeman to offer a prayer of blessing during a school-day luncheon for the dedication of a new field house at Pace High School. “Freeman complied with the request and offered the prayer at the event. It appears this was a school-sponsored event attended by students, faculty and community members.” In respo…

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Conservatives Stand Together for Anti-Gay Bigotry

…TPM’s Evan McMorris-Santoro reported that the SPLC sees little difference between FRC and the KKK: As [SPLC’s Heidi] Beirich told me, there is no difference between the FRC and the KKK in the eyes of the SPLC now. Still, she said that the hate group designation doesn’t mean the SPLC thinks everyone who supports the FRC “has a full understanding of what they’re up to.” Many who support the FRC may do so because of the group’s very public ties to e…

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The Vile Attack on Salman Rushdie Reminds Us of the Value of a Free Society — But is Our Outrage More About the Criminal Than the Crime?

…ely deemed blasphemous serves a larger purpose: If others don’t have their freedoms, I won’t have mine. Yes, some of Rushdie’s language was religiously abhorrent to huge numbers of Muslims. But the same freedom of speech that permitted The Satanic Verses made it possible for me to attend a thoughtful, and exceptionally relevant, sermon at my local mosque, here in Cincinnati. The preacher discussed how the Prophet Muhammad clarified that ritual obs…

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Unnatural Disaster: When Conservative Theology & The Free Market Meet Wildfires

…ethic will spur prayers for, and the insistence on, rebuilding “bigger and better than ever,” to recreate suburban housing developments in the wildland-urban interface. In short, a combination of western libertarianism, historically weak governmental structures, and religiously-based desire to possess even the earth that is bound to burn (and to dispute the reality of global warming’s contribution to making fire zones much larger and more volatile…

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Why We Should Ban Oppressive Speech Acts

…speakers from our midst need not constitute a creeping assault on crucial free speech protections. And so, to crib from a cringey meme, it’s time for some speech act theory! *** In July 2020 Harper’s Magazine published a “Letter on Justice and Open Debate” signed by over 150 writers, academics and public figures—including anti-trans zealot J.K. Rowling, scholar-activist Noam Chomsky, novelist Margaret Atwood and a host of intellectuals, some cons…

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The Subway Sandwich Artist Argument; When “Religious Freedom” Isn’t About Religious Freedom

…s for same- and opposite-sex wedding cakes burdened not only his religious freedom but also, and even more so, his freedom of expression. In a series of cases stretching over many years, the Supreme Court has upheld the expressive freedom of individuals, especially artists, applying the free-speech guarantee of the First Amendment not only to the written word but also to paintings, films, music, and even public parades. It has likewise protected t…

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The End of Roe and the Assault on Trans People — Fail to See the Bigger Picture and We’ll Never Be Free

…from the same evil corrupting our public life. And none of us will win the freedoms we deserve unless we do it together. Liberation is collective. This means that no person is free while their neighbor is shackled, but it also means that we will never break these chains without a universal and reflexive commitment to one another’s thriving. Abortion rights and gender care help people achieve the fullness of who they know they’re called to be. And…

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Putting the “Protest” Back in Protestant: Reclaiming the Spirit of Resistance

…rganized religion (religio = binding) in their lives. Protestantism spawns free thought and free radicals (some of them toxic) the way a prism breaks light into uncountable and unclassifiable hues. So while it is definitely not fair to count the great unchurched free radicals of the 19th and 20th centuries as official Protestants, there is no doubt at all that, unofficially, that is just what many were: not just the towering Lincoln but also such…

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Policing Academic Freedom: A Book, a Controversy, and the Ominous Aftermath

…that scholarly publishers in all countries should defend the principles of freedom of speech and academic freedom by all legal means. While Doniger was supported by the AAS, her body guards that escorted her around the conference reflected the continued presence of the polemic arena. Some of the negative reactions were openly hostile, whereas others were cloaked in political and legal rhetoric that echoed Mr. Batra’s suit. Prior to the conference,…

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