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Romney’s Christian Nation Conundrum

…ndeed the Republican Party’s official position is that the balance between promoting free exercise of religion and prohibiting religious tests for office “has been distorted by judicial rulings which attempt to drive faith out of the public arena.” What would be an appropriate public expression of faith in the public square? In the Republican Party platform, public display of the Ten Commandments and student-led prayer in public schools, because i…

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Ebola and Us: The American Roots of Liberia’s Trauma

…shed active chapters at two-thirds of the colleges and universities in the free states, and their quarrels with the abolitionists were no longer polite and academic. The ACS types took up mob violence against African American schools and churches and raided antislavery institutions. In Connecticut they blocked the opening of a black college (the first of its kind) in New Haven, and they persecuted Prudence Crandall’s school for African American gi…

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How America’s Charismatic Christianity Helped Fuel the Fantasyland Presidency of Donald Trump

…, but there was certainly a great amount of freedom—and not just religious freedom. There was freedom to sell anything you want, to buy anything you want, to be anything you want, to believe anything you want, and to create any kind of religion you want. You may be persecuted for that, as the Mormons were, but if you’re willing to take on that risk, go nuts! So, yes—because we could, we did. That’s part of it. But I’m skeptical that this fully exp…

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Why Hobby Lobby is a Pandora’s Box: Ginsburg v. Alito

…why. This was not a First Amendment case. It was filed under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Understanding this will require a little legal history but I promise to keep it brief. Prior to 1990 The Court ruled on First Amendment Free Exercise claims with a test known as the Sherbert Test. Constitutional rights are not absolute (think laws against human sacrifice). Essentially an infringement on Free Exercise was permitted if: 1) ther…

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What 19th-Century Marriage Controversies Can Tell Us About The Fight Over Gay Marriage

…imentation. During this time, for example, Oneida Perfectionists practiced free love (or communal marriage) and Mormons began practicing polygamy. They were certainly controversial during their time (both groups were run out of various communities), but there seemed to be cultural space for experiments in marriage, religion, and public identity. On the other hand, today’s marriage controversies are not only able to incorporate the powerful rhetori…

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‘Restart the Economy’ is a Prayer to a Conservative God Who Demands Human Sacrifice

…s fill of human flesh. If the blood of human sacrifice was the seed of the free market, its god remains hungry as ever today. As historians such as Kim Phillips-Fein, Kevin Kruse, and Lawrence Glickman have shown, wealthy followers of this god have been successfully proclaiming their gospel as the exclusive path to freedom for generations. Their message now seems obvious and their god feels like the only option. These disciples are sick of losing…

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Here’s What the Court Didn’t Decide in Masterpiece

…sons” and, on the other, “the right of all persons to exercise fundamental freedoms,” including the free exercise of religion. And therein lies a second, likely much less welcome upshot for gay rights advocates. Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the Court argued that the Civil Rights Commission unfairly treated Phillips in two ways. His first argument, that the commission permitted other bakeries to refuse service to customers who wished to commission…

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Supreme Court Conservatives Allow Execution of Muslim Prisoner Despite Religious Freedom Violation

…rnment, the First Amendment is important: “the Constitution’s guarantee of free exercise, cannot impose regulations that are hostile to the religious beliefs of affected citizens …. The Free Exercise Clause bars even ‘subtle departures from neutrality’ on matters of religion.” The Commission was not acting neutrally toward the bakery’s religion. Now, compare this to the short opinion that permitted the execution of Ray, a religious minority. Nothi…

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Corporations, Religious Conscience, Citizens United, and Contraception

…urt. Judge Carol E. Jackson dismissed O’Brien’s claims under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Free Exercise, Establishment, and Free Speech Clausees of the First Amendment. On the RFRA claim—one that conservative opponents of the HHS rule have portrayed as more or less open and shut—the judge ruled that the coverage requirement does not “substantially burden” (the relevant legal standard) O’Brien’s religious practice: Frank O’Brien i…

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Yeshiva is Likely to Win Its Battle Against LGBTQ Group — But Do Jewish Orgs Really Want to Empower a Militant Christian Movement?

…, in recent years, this sweeping illiberal agenda has weaponized religious freedom to promote a militant, literal, and illiberal Christian ideology that embraces Christianity as a bedrock American identity. This agenda not only claims a special place for religion in American culture but demands that the laws of the land be based on Christian morals, ethics, and history. In other words, it has its sights set on the rights and liberties not of relig…

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