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Historian John Ragosta Discusses the Context and Inspiration for ‘Religious Freedom’ in the U.S.

By Frederick Clarkson

…d upon it to for 140 years to define religious freedom [since Reynolds vs. United States, 1879], but it played a critical role in development of the First Amendment and in the way the states defined religious freedom. It was far better known in the nineteenth century when historians, students, newspaper editors and politicians regularly turned to the Statute to understand religious liberty. Its history is equally important: After the American Revo…

Praise the Lard This Holiday Season

By Becky Garrison

…emain volunteer based with no paid church staff. For those who compare the United Church of Bacon with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, another atheism-inspired church with similar goals, Prophet John notes “bacon can be proven to exist, but we have no evidence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.” They are cool with the pastafarians though they prefer bacon as the main ingredient in bacon and pasta dishes. Both churches ordain clergy, thou…

What a Forgotten 19th Century Suffragist Can Teach Us About Women’s Rights vs. The Religious Right

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…iety shall be . . . to secure such an amendment to the Constitution of the United States as will declare the nation’s allegiance to Jesus Christ and its acceptance of the moral laws of the Christian religion, and so indicate that this is a Christian nation, and place all the Christian laws, institutions and usages of our government on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land. Due to other major national events—the Civil War, fo…

Blood and Hammers: Elderly Anti-Nuclear Activists Sentenced to Jail

By Kristen Tobey

…of their eighteen-month to ten-year sentences. Plowshares activists in the United States have never been acquitted, though on occasion charges against them have been “inexplicably” dropped (not, however, when they have filed to have charges dismissed, as did the Disarm Now Plowshares, along with a few other groups of Plowshares activists over the years — these motions have been denied). The near-certainty of a jury trial has come to be crucial to…

In 2012 Bishops Join Fight to Repackage Discrimination as ‘Religious Freedom’

By Sarah Posner

…dependent judiciary,” said Rob Boston, Senior Policy Counsel for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “The United States enjoys the highest degree of religious liberty of any nation in the world. Gingrich and his allies talk about threats to religious freedom, but what they really want is the right to use government to shove conservative/fundamentalist/ultra-orthodox social views down everyone else’s throats.” Investigations H…

What a Spooky Summer Trend Says About Enchantment in the Late Modern U.S.

By Daniel Wise

…sychics, alien visitors, and creatures like Bigfoot, is on the rise in the United States. Furthermore, a group that is growing in the United States is those who claim to be “spiritual, but not religious.” Many people claim no religious affiliation, yet still believe in God and participate in religious activities such as prayer. It’s common for those who claim no religion to hold New Age beliefs, such as reincarnation and astrology. One of the thin…

Stupak Is Back, But Moderate Catholic Group Says His Amendment “Goes Too Far”

By Sarah Posner

…largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.” Chris Korzen, Catholics United’s executive director, told me this morning, “The fact that many on the pro-life side are opposing Nelson language suggests that they’re not really serious about finding a workable solution.” Even though Catholics United believes that the Nelson language also goes too far in restricting abortion coverage, Korzen added, “I understand that can’t be addressed through [re…

Museum of (In)tolerance for Divided City

By Shalom Goldman

…s exhumed the graves under the supervision of an Israeli archeologist. The number of skeletons taken out of the site numbered between one thousand and fifteen hundred. According to Gideon Sulaimani, an archeologist who worked at the site before the court injunction went into effect “They call this an archeological excavation but it’s really a clearing-out, an erasure of the Muslim past.” In 1984, George Orwell’s great satire of totalitarian regime…

Colonialism and the Crisis Inside the Crisis of Catholic Sexual Abuse

By Kathleen Holscher

…associates, high rates of abuse span Catholic colonial geographies in the United States and elsewhere. Consider, for example, the dioceses of Rapid City and Sioux Falls, which together extend their ecclesial jurisdiction over 6 federal Indian reservations in South Dakota. By 2010, more than 65 Catholic priests and religious formerly employed at Indian boarding schools within those dioceses had been named in lawsuits targeting sexual abuse—a numbe…

The End of Michele Bachmann?

By Sarah Posner

…inence in America are now known to be, as a matter of fact, hostile to the United States and its Constitution.” Based on the ‘explanatory memorandum’ document identifying a number of American Muslim organizations as allies in its author’s aspirations, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation trial publicly labeled over 200 American Muslim organizations “unindicted co-conspirators,” a highly controversial move derided at the time by legal experts as…