Religion Dispatches
…services themselves. The problem is that this creates a false distinction between the state as an actor and people as actors. State services are, all of them, provided by organizations and by people. Catholic institutions are claiming an exemption from the obligation to provide such services because they are religiously opposed to them. They are engaging in a selective opt-out, just like the guy from North Carolina. I am not convinced that any of…
Read More…omebody should ask them if just how committed they are to the ideal of the free market. Because the other tension in the nation-state as it has developed is the twin definition of citizenship: on the one hand, citizens are free to participate in the political realm. On the other, they’re free to participate in the economic realm, which is to say, the market. Increasingly in the post-war era, it’s that last definition that has taken precedence, lea…
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…ting that when voters last made their choice, against Trump, in 2020—he refused to accept it, refused to participate in the peaceful transfer of power, and waged a violent coup, with his supporters trying to hunt down and kill members of Congress, and hang his own Vice president. In the end, the survival of liberal democracies might in no small part depend on the willingness of their courts and other authorities to use the defense mechanisms their…
Read More…hypothetical and puts his finger on exactly how it distorts the interplay between the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause: The analogy to “forcing kosher delis to sell ham,” put forward by Bishop William Lori, exemplifies the way the problem is misunderstood. In America (unlike in Israel), people have the right to choose whether they want to sell ham and whether they want to consume it; neither option is proscribed. We all might agr…
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…hands rest on levers that could combat directly and profoundly the root 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…
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…contemporary Islam, Mahmood argues that many Muslims were not offended because a law against representation of the prophet was broken but because a person they loved and revered was insulted. She considers two possible legal framings of the injury, one as an incidence of racism to be classified as a hate crime, the other in terms of blasphemy and free speech. She then shows how each fails in this case for various reasons, but, that it is, in large…
Read More…ed not—and should not—impose.” (Obama’s “steadfast commitment to religious freedom” has somehow been forgotten in the contraception wars.) In its written answers to Scott’s questions posed at the 2011 House Judiciary Committee hearing, DOJ said that “in response” to the World Vision opinion, the Office of Justice Programs “developed a policy that allows for a case-by-case review of applicants seeking a similiar exemption.” Under the policy, accord…
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…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…
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…lloween masks should be similarly avoided by Muslims. Select costumes that use make-up rather than masks. Select costumes that do not use any forms of head-covering (e.g. wigs, scarves, nun’s habit, pirate hat). Dressing up as, say, Whoopi Goldberg may be impermissible because it necessitates dreadlocks. Dressing up as, say, Queen Elizabeth also involves head-wear, and should be avoided. The Muslim-Catholic comparison has already become a sore poi…
Read More…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 of those who cannot create it for themselves, one whose love is not threatened by a diverse society, one who wildly and without a doubt free, and calls us to real freedom, which is to live as neighbors, w…
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