Religion Dispatches
…oppression cannot be far behind. Conversely, if a God is disclosed who is free to come and go, free from and even against the regime, free to hear and even answer slave cries, free from all proper godness 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…
Read More…isn’t covered because their boss thinks it’s tantamount to murder–dignity didn’t enter into the equation. We’re focused on the bakers and the caterers, in part because the religious right has made such a spectacle of them, with hyperbolic pronouncements about the end of religious freedom and free speech. It’s easy to forget that in most states, as well as under federal law, LGBT people are left unprotected in public accommodations, housing, and em…
Read More…Restoration Act, not on the plaintiffs’ 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…
Read More…loped 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, leaving us with a global marketplace populated by members of many different nations and ethnicities. As Cavanaugh points out, the less government you h…
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…incentive the Christian Right has to keep the focus on religion instead of free speech is because the implications if Smith wins on the free speech argument are, frankly, unthinkable. A win for Smith would bore a hole right in the center of nondiscrimination laws—nondiscrimination laws for all, not just for LGBTQ people—no matter what ADF want us to think. A win for Smith would, by some measures, create an entirely new class of rights: artists who…
Read More…l orientation in public accommodations, did not violate the photographer’s Free Speech or Free Exercise rights, nor did it violate the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The photographers sought review from the United States Supreme Court on one issue: whether the state human rights law violated their free speech rights. They did not seek review on the other questions. The New Mexico Supreme Court is the court of last resort on the questio…
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…in Europe and elsewhere have failed to internalize the democratic value of free speech. Jyllands-Posten, for its part, self-righteously claimed to be heroically rescuing free speech in the face of the fearful self-censorship practiced by Danish writers and artists with respect to criticism of Islam. The incident was portrayed as a clash between the liberal values of an open society and an anti-modern, authoritarian, and superstitious religion. In…
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…When you step out in clothing that boldly states your womanhood, you are a free woman. You are no longer a slave to old rules and notions. Modernity is inherently free. Therefore, burqas, veils, and headscarves are now off-limits. Women who appear in public wearing such clothing may be fined, arrested, and/or imprisoned. They may be prevented from attending schools and colleges, and from going to work. (We may make allowances for shoppers, though,…
Read More…all Street hucksters? But here’s the kicker: The fact that Jesus chose the free market system as the basis for this parable should not be overlooked. When the nobleman returns, after being established as king – a stand-in for Jesus – he calls all his servants together to see what they had accomplished in his absence. Ah. The kingdom Jesus is expecting upon his return is a free market system? Novel. Perkins goes on to argue that Jesus “rejected col…
Read More…deo-Christian” values and nations. Lind worked at the Paul Weyrich-founded Free Congress Foundation as its Director of its Center for Cultural Conservatism, a position he left in 2009. Berlet dates Lind’s first significant writing on “cultural Marxism” to 1997. Berlet: Most significant is a collection of essays published by the Free Congress Foundation in 2004 on cultural Marxism, political correctness, and multiculturalism. The editor of that col…
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