Religion Dispatches
…ry cannot, for example, access the Wikipedia page on Wicca, though they’re free to read the Catholic Encyclopedia’s page on Paganism. By banning the categories into which minority religions are classified, the library’s policy appears to violate the Constitution’s establishment clause. By extension, it would be unconstitutional for any government agency to use Netsweeper to censor public access to “occult” sites. However, Netsweeper is a global co…
Read More…s opposition to the regulation as “because the Mandate threatens religious freedom and proposes a reductionist and harmful understanding of women’s freedom.” Alvaré reprises the “immiseration” theme in the brief, arguing that “even if contraceptives have the indirect beneficial effects HHS identifies, HHS does not indicate the size of these benefits, or whether they outweigh the adverse health outcomes caused by some contraceptives, or the adverse…
Read More…lowed suit, and both schools continue to reject federal money to this day. Free to run their organizations as they see fit, they are also free from government dependence. Even if you disagree on the particulars, you have to respect the consistency. These days, there is reason for skepticism whenever “religious liberty” clamors to the fore. Researchers have found, unsurprisingly, that frames touting liberties and rights serve as rhetorical veils, a…
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…Instead of independence there has been an unhealthy dependence and loss of freedom. Unless people feel free, any “democracy” is going to be superficial and flawed. And modernity did not come with innovation to the Muslims: because we were so far ahead, they could only copy us. So instead of innovation you have imitation. We also know in our own lives that it is difficult, even impossible, to be creative when we feel under attack. Muslims often fee…
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…aeli scholars said that, in this case, they cared less or not at all about freedom of speech. Former SBL President Athalya Brenner wrote that: “At this time I’m less concerned than usual about freedom of expression, future job prospects of younger colleagues, and so on..[F]reedom of verbal expression does not and should not extend to hate speech and violence. Out of self defense, this is not the company i want to keep.” Noam, the aforementioned Ta…
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…of anti-Black violence from Irish workers who saw both enslaved people and free people of color as their economic competitors). But the nexus is always there. Not for nothing was the Trump campaign slogan easily construed to mean “Make America White Again.” As Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman remark in their introduction to Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development, the coerced labor provided by enslaved people was not some…
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…stitute, a Christian Nationalist legal outfit bent on redefining religious freedom under the First Amendment. The Institute’s goal is to morph the hallowed protection for religious freedom, the shield, into a tool to impose that religion on others, a weapon. The coach and the Institute aren’t seeking religious freedom, but religious privilege. They don’t want equal treatment (nobody else is allowed on the field to pray), but special treatment for…
Read More…oaning the tolerance found on college campuses: “Our proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom of express “the thought that we hate.” Today’s decision rests on a very different principle: no freedom of expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning. I mean, really, the First Amendment ought to give groups the right to name who they will hat…
Read More…one agrees with him or not is beside the point. Anti-choice Catholics are free to argue goals and strategies, and a religion publication is free to host parts of that conversation. This is about context and consistency. It’s about the fact that Dolan’s piece is, in more than one way, suggestive of the very favoritism that Jones and Russell-Kraft document. First off, there’s history here between Rev. Reese and the Catholic hierarchy. Reese was onc…
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…eader. He has faced accusations of imposing an autocratic rule by muzzling free speech and media freedoms. Tanzania: Government threatens LGBT activists and NGO supporters Government officials have “threatened to arrest and expel activists, as well as deregister all non-governmental organisations that campaign for gay rights,” reports Reuters. Singapore: Pink Dot rally succeeds without banned participation and funding from foreigners Thousands att…
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