We live in a political environment that rewards those with short, snappy solutions to all society’s problems. Proponents of competing ideologies evidently see no shades of gray; appreciation of ambiguity is an endangered talent. Public dialogue has…
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Category Archives: Religious Liberty
Handbook on Religion and the Public Schools
This handbook was developed with the help of IU Law professor Alex Tanford while I was at the ICLU, and was subsequently distributed to all members by the Indiana School Superintendents Association. It is an attempt to explain the operation of the religion clauses in the public school context, and is intended to be an accurate reflection of the law, not as advocacy for or against any particular interpretation.
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Christians, Lions & the Bill of Rights
In a free country, citizens will always debate matters of public policy and the proper interpretation of the laws. This is as it should be; the clash of ideas and beliefs, the "marketplace of ideas" is precisely what the founders of this nation wanted to…
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Inconsistencies
Most of us profess to admire people of principle, but that admiration is often distressingly abstract. In real life, people who stand on principle are likely to find that they have stepped into the line of everyone’s fire.
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Religious Voices and the Public Square
Recently, the Indianapolis Star invited readers to comment on the propriety of religious voices engaging in the public debate. To ask the question is to answer it: on what conceivable basis would we bar people of faith from the public square? Even if the Constitution allowed such a thing — and it does not — our public discourse…
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