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Supreme Court OKs State Funding Scheme for Religious Schools and Bars Challenges

By Peter Laarman

…taining favorable tax treatment from the state for advancing a religious cause? If I know Petra’s views as well as I think I do, I doubt that Justice Kennedy has won her over. Petra will argue that any tax subsidy for religion, in a closed system where the power to tax is limited, violates the non-establishment clause. Petra will also argue that the principle of taxpayer-supported universal public education is severely undercut if more and more ta…

Tennessee Anti-Evolution Update

By Lauri Lebo

…ed out of the House Education Committee this week. It will now go to the House Calendar and Rules Committee for a vote before being introduced to the House floor. A companion bill, SB 893, remains in the Senate Education Committee. I wrote about the bill earlier this month here and here. As with most of the other anti-evolution bills that have been introduced this year in states across the country, the Tennessee legislation does not specifically m…

6 Reservations About U.S. Intervention in Libya

By Haroon Moghul

…ish the judge could act with more discretion. But that discretion itself causes the greater danger; hence the wisdom of our political system. Because, in the aggregate, the presence of such checks and balances ensures a more just society for all; maybe not immediately, but over time. So too with our government and our foreign policy. While, yes, it is true that consulting with Congress may have caused us to intervene far too late, or not at all,…

Record Number of Stealth Creationism Bills Introduced in 2011

By Lauri Lebo

…ntific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.” As always, since intelligent design was ruled unconstitutional in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the introduced bills rely on such creationist code words as “teaching the controversy,” “academic freedom,” or “critical analysis.” However, in the case of Florida, the bill’s sponsoring lawmaker Rep. Stephen Wise had proposed similar legislation in 2009. The bill died in comm…

Mississippi’s Personhood Bill Makes God Look Bad

By Daniel C. Maguire

…there is broad agreement on what is called “delayed ensoulment.” That was code for saying that the fetus does not attain to personal status until it is well formed. Early miscarriages could not be named or given religious funerals. Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas held that the early fetus had the moral status of a plant, and that not even God could infuse a spiritual, person-making soul until the fetus was developed; some put this today at si…

How (Not) to Understand Romney’s Time as an LDS Bishop

By Joanna Brooks

…d the policies of the institution they serve. This, of course, does not excuse Romney’s egregious incidences of coldness and disrespect towards women as reported in Salon and elsewhere. But it’s wrong to depict Mitt Romney as some kind of hardliner, because as far as Mormon men of his generation go, on gender, Romney is rather moderate. Given the scrutiny of Romney’s time as bishop, it also helps to understand more about the roles of bishops in LD…

South Dakota Bill Could Legalize Killing Abortion Doctors

By Lauri Lebo

…e made in the committee hearing on the bill last week. “If you look at the code, these codes are dealing with illegal acts. Now, abortion is a legal act. So this has got nothing to do with abortion.” Here is the bill in its entirety: FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to expand the definition of justifiable homicide to provide for the protection of certain unborn children. BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA: Section 1. Th…

Is the Satanic Temple Just an Elaborate Prank? 10 Questions for the Author of ‘Speak of the Devil’

By Joseph Laycock

…rbed to read some of TST’s Christian opponents openly renouncing religious freedom if it meant respecting the freedoms of Satanists. I also think TST is forcing the public to think more critically about what “religion” is. They are directly challenging the popular notion that religion is really about supernaturalism. I met several Satanists who had been hostile to the idea of “religion,” until they discovered TST and re-imagined what a religion co…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions,” said a YouTube spokesperson at the time. “This can be a challenge because what’s okay in one country can be offensive elsewhere.” International human rights treaties guarantee all citizens freedom of thought and freedom of expression. But these treaties are binding on states, not on the media corporations that enable the exercise of such freedoms. It rema…

Why I’m Grateful for 2012, The Rapture, and other Millennial Delusions

By Jay Michaelson

…lms like Fight Club or the latest Batman flick: utopian idealists who will use any means, including violence, to bring about the transformation they seek. In practice, though, they tend to be mostly harmless. I once had a noted New Age peace activist tell me that, because all spiritual practice has ripple effects outward, “my cat is a contemplative contributor to the universe.” I swear I’m not making that up. The reasoning (if that’s what it is) i…