Religion Dispatches
…agency) issues a rule that requires any organization that offers the poor free meals to include meat on its menu, with the single exception of religious organizations that offer only coreligionists free meals. In the statement announcing the new requirement, the government points out that most people do eat meat, and that most doctors believe meat is good for you in the right amounts, since it provides important nutrients that are difficult to fi…
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…manifestations of man’s quest to understand the divine.” If both are left free to operate, free from intellectual arrogance and dogma, they will spiral into mutual completion. Not even harmony in separate-but-equal spheres. No, they’ll correct each other, benefit each other, and we’ll all be the better for it. This kind of thinking has a history. It’s little different from the religious flavor of the European Enlightenment; figures like Isaac New…
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…ibowitz of Hebrew University said that for him the question was not how to free the territories from Israel, but rather, “how to free Israel from the territories.” A Palestinian Gandhi? Among Palestinian intellectuals, both violent and nonviolent opposition to Israeli rule were among the possibilities discussed in the first two decades after the 1967 War. Among those who have advocated nonviolent resistance and have therefore been dubbed a “Palest…
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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…
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…’s. Jerry Falwell Jr., Chancellor of Liberty University, has offered her a free ride at Liberty to complete her college education. He noted that all of the male students currently enrolled, having seen her bikini pictures, would line up to donate the funds personally. (It’s not entirely clear whether she can meet the dress code, once she were to arrive, however.) Shrouding Sexual Titillation and Drooling Voyeurism with the Patina of Beauty and Vir…
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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…
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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…ess creativity of the universe and the objective validity of human rights. Promoting and accepting religious images as universal will help heal culture war divisions and promote the formation of a broad-based progressive coalition. Frederick Clarkson: Thanks for hosting this discussion, Linell. I think these matters are integral to the functioning, the advance, and indeed the survival of Constitutional democracy. But I think that in order to give…
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…mendment. ADF considers the restriction a violation of a church’s right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The Pulpit Initiative White Paper states: The prohibition also violates the free exercise of religion. Under the Free Exercise Clause, laws are closely scrutinized by courts when they discriminate against religion or when they substantially burden religious exercise and other constitutional rights are also at stake… When the IRS th…
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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…
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