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A Bill Passes, Westboro Baptists Shrug

By Rebecca Barrett-Fox

…the two key issues at stake in its signing: First Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion and to free speech: I am very pleased to be signing this bill into law. The graves of our veterans are hallowed ground. And obviously we all defend our Constitution and the First Amendment and free speech, but we also believe that when men and women die in the service of their country and are laid to rest, it should be done with the utmost honor an…

Who’s to Blame for BP?

By David True

…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…

Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…bbis and religious leaders” have spread. Scotland: Anti-gay Minister Named Free Church Moderator Rev. David Robertson, an opponent of marriage equality, has been named the next moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, which has welcomed some clergy and congregations that have left the Church of Scotland over the question of gay clergy.Robertson is also director of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity. Before the Scottish Parliament approved m…

Historian: Evangelical Trump Fandom is No Deviation

By Neil J. Young

…from the same arguments used by segregationists arguing for the “religious freedom” to set up all-white segregation academies in the 1970s or defend a white-led Cold War for “religious freedom” and capitalism against Cold War communism. But discretion plus privilege is discrimination. And evangelicals have enjoyed a longstanding right to define the terms of “religious freedom” as it benefits their own cultural position, a position that has been fa…

Rubio Is Confused About Christianity, Marriage Equality, and the Constitution

By Sarah Posner

…other religious teaching) at all, much less deeming it “hate speech.” The Free Exercise Clause protects religious practice and religious speech. Under the Free Speech Clause, the government cannot proscribe “hate speech” or even define it. Under the Establishment Clause, the government cannot endorse (or renounce) a particular religion. You can say gay people are intrinsically disordered. Or you can say they don’t have a constitutional right to g…

Mad Men’s Matt Weiner, Warrior Against Woo

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…clichéd word turbulence, and free love, and things like that. But there’s free love in the 1920s; there’s free love in the 1930s; the beatnik movement in the 1950s. No one invented any of this. What was different in the 60s, according to Weiner, was that baby boomers were spoiled: plenty of education, money, entertainment; there was a war, but you could get out of it if you were lucky. This vision of unprecedented opportunity strikes me as fair;…

In Russia It Is Now a Crime to Insult Someone’s Religious Feelings

By Chrissy Stroop

…sonally, I appreciate and enjoy the radically liberal American approach to free speech, including the right to blaspheme—which is of course not to say that to do so is always wise or tasteful. But, as retired history professor Anthony Edmonds of Ball State University used to quip in the classroom, a historian’s favorite hand is “the other hand.” For better or for worse, I am professionally trained as a historian. Thus, despite my respect for Ameri…

Texas Textbook Massacre

By Lauri Lebo

…nment thinkers, board members also removed the word “Enlightenment.” 4. A Free Substitute for Capitalism: Board conservatives banned the word “capitalism” from the standards, arguing that “liberal professors in academia” use the word in a negative way. The phrase “free enterprise” is to be used in its place. 5. McCarthy, Great American Hero: Led by McLeroy, board members voted to require students to learn about “communist infiltration” in the 195…

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

By Shabana Mir

…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…

WaPo OpEd: Pope Francis and the Koch Bros Love and Serve the Poor Together

By Patricia Miller

…ess by supporting organizations that “bear the common mission of advancing free enterprise and free societies.” The Saemans write that “promoting limited government alongside the Kochs is an important part of heeding Pope Francis’s call to love and serve the poor.” This despite Francis’ unequivocal statements almost exactly a year ago in opposition to the “free enterprise” ideology: “Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assum…