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The Uncertain Post-Obergefell World of Religious Exemptions

By Sarah Posner

…combat efforts in some states, such as Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Dakota, to thwart same-sex couples from obtaining marriage licenses. But its ultimate scope will be much broader, and will include lobbying efforts to defeat expansive religious freedom acts in the states, and litigating cases arising out of claims that religious freedom protects the rights, for example, of business owners who refuse wedding services to same-sex coupl…

#WhoIsBurningBlackChurches: Is It Freedom Summer Again?

By Anthea Butler

…ing or other causes. Meanwhile, several African American female pastors in South Carolina have had threatening letters sent to them, stating, “You and your children will die.” When it comes to racism in America, and specifically acts of violence against black Christians and black churches, the past is not even the past—it is a very present danger. While academics might argue about the death of the black church, racists know the history of the blac…

Unreleased Religious Freedom Manifesto Isn’t the Culture War Compromise It Hopes to Be

By Frederick Clarkson

…e horrific murders by a white supremacist at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. “Friends, this is a time when the darkest parts of the human soul are coming to the surface yet again,” he said. “The answer is not simply civility or the knowledge of our ideals, because we have in fact known them, even written them down in times past, and civility has never saved us; it just makes us feel good while some others suffer.” DuBois reca…

Bobby Jindal Hypes His Christian Cred at Liberty U.

By Murali Balaji

…e route.) To be sure, the public embrace of Christianity by Jindal and his South Carolina counterpart, Gov. Nikki Haley (who was raised Sikh and claimed Sikh-American heritage until her 2010 gubernatorial run) is something many of us don’t want to discuss because we look at religious freedom as an enshrined right. But the truth is, religious freedom is highly subjective and dovetails with what it means to become American for many kids from non-Chr…

Breaking Up With Marilynne Robinson Over Her Refusal to Acknowledge the Dark Side of Puritanism

By Peter Laarman

…the general pattern of freedom for us/unfreedom for others is of apartheid South Africa, where a notoriously brutal regime that, just like New England, saw itself as a “New Israel,” survived until 1990. This is the darker side of Calvinism that Robinson has seldom if ever discussed, and it would really help her case for Calvinist “liberality” if she could also acknowledge the shadow side. For example, she might consider asking the Irish what they…

The SBC Sexual Abuse Scandal is a ‘Success’ Story of the Theological Vision and Social Structure of the ‘Conservative Resurgence’

By Diana Butler Bass

…es as dutiful possessions of their masters. Thus, Baptists in the American South eventually became Southern Baptists—a denomination where a culture of southern patriarchy and deference prevailed. That culture had originated in Anglican prerogative and entitlement, and it was not native to Baptists’ own egalitarian religious movement. Yet, hierarchy reshaped the very meaning and practice of being Baptist, and it displaced spiritual freedom by repla…

Turn on the News: Why Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Faith Doesn’t Matter (But Amy Coney Barrett’s Did)

By Daniel Schultz

…weirder moments in the proceedings came when Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked Jackson about her faith, pressing her for specifics before abruptly inquiring if she could fairly judge a Catholic. Jackson looked stunned, as though he had asked about her feelings on UFOs. Graham pushed on, wanting to know exactly how important the judge’s faith was to her, asking her to rate it on a scale and how often she attended church. Jackson responde…

Citing ‘Matthew 25’ Isn’t a Viable Democratic Faith Outreach Strategy

By Daniel Schultz

…t: When Pete Buttigieg launched his first statewide television ad in South Carolina two months ago, its opening lines may have sounded familiar to a churchgoer. The ad opens with footage from a speech by the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor in which Buttigieg says that if he’s elected president, Americans wouldn’t have to ask themselves, “Whatever happened to, ‘I was hungry and you fed me? I was a stranger and you welcomed me?’” Matthew 25! Tikku…

Accept Gays? Only If They Know Their Place

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…k as equal? When Elke Kennedy’s son Sean was killed on a Greenville, South Carolina street two years ago by a man who called him a “faggot” before hitting him in the face so hard it separated his brain stem from his brain, the one place she could not go for comfort was the church. In Crisis, a new book that features forty stories, including Elke’s, about the pain and trauma suffered by gay and lesbian people and their families, Elke writes: “After…

The Right Wing Slant on Religious Freedom is a Slippery Slope

By Frederick Clarkson

…ptions.” The manual lists state laws from Alabama, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and of course, Virginia. The most recent available Project Blitz manual (exposed by RD in 2021) adds Kansas and Oklahoma to the list of states that have adopted similar legislation. The title of the Project Blitz model bill has since been changed to the “Child Welfare Maximization Act,” perhaps in an effort to underscore that adoptive and foster care ch…