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Why Trump’s Religious Liberty Order is “a Whole Lot of Nothing”

By Sunnivie Brydum

…assage of H.R. 172, introduced into the House in January by North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones. (The bill hasn’t even gotten a preliminary reading yet.) We thought we’d have to sue Trump today. But it turned out the order signing was an elaborate photo-op with no discernible policy outcome. — ACLU National (@ACLU) May 4, 2017 Hobby Lobby Still Doesn’t Have to Pay for Your Birth Control (Or Pap Smears or Mammograms…) The order’s sec…

ID, Please Come Out

By Paul Wallace

…(ID) movement has made its way into the mouth of a local politician. State Rep. Rick Brattin (R), the sponsor of HB 1227, wants ID to be taught alongside evolution in Missouri’s science classrooms. According to the Kansas City Star, Brattin says the bill is “not about religion.” Yet in the selfsame report he says, “I keep pointing to a Gallup poll that shows 90 percent of Americans believe in a higher power. And yet our schools only teach that we…

Obama Administration Gives Free Pass for Faith-Based Groups to Discriminate

By Sarah Posner

…s by grantees.” After the 2011 hearing, Scott told San Francisco Chronicle reporter Bob Egelko that Holder was “obviously ‘embarrassed to try to explain the policy’” and that Obama could repeal the OLC memo via executive order but had made no effort to. The responses to Scott’s question finally reveal the straightforward answer CARD has long sought. Although it was unclear at the time exactly how the Obama administration was implementing the Bush…

Glenn Beck’s ‘Social Justice’ Heresies

By Sarah Posner

…(Princeton’s Robert George, mastermind of the Manhattan Declaration) to a Republican candidate for Congress (the Rev. Stephen Broden, who gave a “benediction” at Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “Code Red” anti-health care rally). Broden claimed that “the social justice movement is built upon or predicated on the idea of liberation theology.” (They are, in fact, two separate religious movements.) “Liberation theology has its origin or source in socialism,…

Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates: The Problem with Popularization

By Kathryn Lofton

…suck-up,” is “Mr. Arminianism.” John Endecott is “Winthrop’s Welcome Wagon rep” who becomes the “mullah of Salem.” The Pequot War was a “destructive tantrum” inspired by the same frustration that makes “skateboarders…break their own skateboards in half.” Into this Marvel Comics colony Vowell inserts a host of analogies bent on making Puritan obscurity present. John Cotton’s Southampton sendoff in 1630 is “like scoring Nelson Mandela to deliver the…

Celebrating Religious Freedom Day By Taking Back the Revolutionary Meaning of ‘Religious Freedom’

By Frederick Clarkson

…igious freedom and the narrative of our history to Christian nationalist politicians. As Thomas Jefferson so clearly articulated, religious freedom means freedom for people of all faiths and people of none….

OK’s Anti-Gay Marriage Bill Would Change Weddings But not Marriage—Not Even Gay Ones

By William E. Smith

In an effort to promote freedom of religion, Republican State Rep. Todd Russ introduced House Bill 1125 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives which would amend certain of the state’s marriage laws. Specifically, HB 1125, passed by the Oklahoma House on March 10th, eliminates all statutory references to state-issued marriage licenses. Russ’s apparent goal for the bill is to preemptively protect court clerks who feel their personal religious bel…

Should the Supreme Court Have A Protestant On It?

By Daniel Schultz

…lls you so much about a person. For example, Howard Dean, Sen. Max Baucus, Rep. Thelma Drake, and I are all members of the United Church of Christ. Yes, it’s a notoriously heterodox denomination, but it’s also small: a little less than 2 million members. If we can hold that much ideological diversity in our little denomination, what do you think would happen with Catholics or even evangelicals? Look, there’s only so many people even remotely quali…

Religious Right in a Froth Over Hate Crimes Legislation

By Bill Berkowitz

…erican Family Association, Donald Wildmon states: America’s most basic freedoms of speech, conscience and the free exercise of religion are under attack and the time to act is now. If President Obama succeeds with his priority of passing the Hate Crimes law, H.R. 1913 – the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, it could lead to the criminalization of the Biblical view of homosexuality in sermons and elsewhere. An offended homosexual co…

Netanyahu’s Speech, Lane’s Trip, and the Impossibility of Boycotts

By Sarah Posner

…er, had a “spirited” meeting with seven pro-Israel House Democrats. The AP reports that Rep. Steve Israel, the Democrat who arranged the Dermer meeting, said that “one thing we all agreed on emphatically is that Israel should never be used as a political football.” Although Vice President Joe Biden has not committed to attending the speech, this seems like pressure, not a full-on boycott. After all, the most J Street has called for is a delay of t…