Religious Liberty

God and Caesar

In his regular Monday e-letter today, noted theologian Martin Marty tackles the recent uproar over HHS regulations requiring religious institutions—including charities, hospitals and schools–to provide health insurance to their employees that covers some procedures with which their church and members disagree. He notes that this sort of conflict between government rule making and religious dogma is [...]

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A Question for the Godly

The New York Times recently reported on a town clerk in upstate New York who was refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, despite passage of the recent New York law recognizing such unions. She cited evangelical Christianity as a bar against performing her official duties. “For me to participate in the same-sex marriage application [...]

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Pathetic Policy Discourse

There are a lot of examples of what happens when those making policy don’t know what they are talking about, but here’s one that just annoys the hell out of me every time it comes up. The New York legislature is preparing to vote on whether the state will recognize same-sex marriage. The Times reports [...]

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Constitution 101

A few years ago, the American Constitution Center conducted a poll to assess the country’s constitutional literacy, and drew a depressing conclusion: Americans revere the Constitution, but have virtually no idea what it says or means.  If that conclusion seems a bit “over the top,” consider some of the more indignant reactions to two recent court [...]

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Whose America? Whose Values?

What with the charges and counter-charges about the war in Iraq, the use—actually, abuse—of Executive Privilege, and locally, the uproar over property taxes, this little tidbit hasn’t gotten much ink. But it is a telling indicator of the wildly different definition of the term “American values” held by today’s citizens.   Sessions of Congress begin [...]

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