Religion Dispatches
…se lives improved when women stopped voting. “It facilitates communication between spouses,” they argue. “A husband, who knows that he will be voting on behalf of two people, and not just himself, becomes less selfish. He learns to listen, because he has to. Meanwhile, a wife is not just encouraged, but required to make her concerns known to her husband. If a wife has her vote and a husband his, it introduces strife and self-interest into the marr…
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…ce laws which further restrict the human rights of their LGBT populations….Freedom of expression and freedom of association are integral in the fight for LGBT acceptance, but in many African states (and beyond) these fundamental human rights are heavily restricted…. Before the continent’s activists can bring about the decriminalisation of homosexuality, they must first secure a platform for discussing the issue free from persecution. In countries…
Read More…he line she draws in order to resist the majority’s reading of RFRA is not between natural and corporate persons but between corporate persons that are “religious” and those that are not. In the end, Porterfield obscures this distinction. She notes that from a historical perspective, “it is easy to see why corporations have freedom in the United States.” She then concludes that “whether we label this freedom ‘religious’ or ‘political’ is almost be…
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…pulation traumatized by the upheavals of partition, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the State.” Would that Jinnah had survived longer (he died in 1948) to secure that principle in Pakistani society. Instead, the now over sixty-year struggle to…
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…age cost her the contest, Hilton unloaded, saying that she didn’t lose because she opposed gay marriage but because she’s “a dumb b***h.” In the following days, Ms. Prejean became something of a cause célèbre for many on the religious right, including James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. Bad Theology Leads to Bad Ethics For my part, beauty pageants ceased to be of interest some time ago. In my opinion they are exercises in the banality of soft-core…
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…nst Dillard, she defended the letter as divinely inspired—an expression of free speech and freedom of religion. Burkhart had trouble finding doctors for her own clinic, when she started exploring the idea of reopening the practice several years ago. One in-state doctor expressed interest, but after his local hospital learned about it, Burkhart said, they threatened to terminate his contract. An anonymous doctor who will work at the clinic describe…
Read More…on of religious freedom in existing federal and state law, could provide a free pass to use religion to refuse service to certain types of customers. It was public opposition, widely shared by individuals, businesses, business interests, and religious actors, which spurred Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s veto, and the failure of similar bills in other states (save Mississippi). Opponents of LGBT equality face real, significant societal, cultural and leg…
Read More…iffs’ 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 least restrictive means of carryin…
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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…
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…vernment agencies administering grant programs are expected to distinguish between a house of worship’s religious identity and its religious activities is a spectacularly difficult (if not impossible) task that’s entirely ignored by the Court. Making such a distinction is now constitutionally essential, however, as programs must navigate between not funding religious activities, lest they violate the Establishment Clause, and not “discriminating”…
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