Church-State
Religious Liberty in Tennessee
By Mark Silk — July 29, 2010
Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, who happens to be running for governor of the Volunteer State, has caught a bunch of flak for his recent comments on the stump suggesting that Muslims might not merit First Amendment protection. Asked to comment on the proposed construction of an Islamic community center in Murfreesboro, he said, “You […]
Constitution Party’s anti-Constitutional Attitude
By Mark Silk — July 27, 2010
On the country’s religious founding.
Destroying religious freedom
By Mark Silk — July 13, 2010
Ever alert for Republican wackiness, TPM calls our attention to a recent TV interview with Ed Martin, who’s got the GOP nomination to run against Rep. Russ Carnahan to represent Missouri’s Third District in Congress. One thing I like to say is: America is great, not because of our genetics. We’re great because we created […]
Kagan’s Religion Clause Answers
By Mark Silk — July 1, 2010
Elena Kagan was asked a few questions about the religion clauses yesterday, and the Baptist Joint Committee has a transcript. On my non-lawyer’s reading, her answers are lawyerly, professorial, and determinedly unrevealing about where she herself might come down as a Supreme Court justice. She indicated that in resolving the tension between the Free Exercise […]
No Religious Freedom to Discriminate?
By Mark Silk — June 29, 2010
Reporting on yesterday’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the NYT’s Adam Liptak described the case as a clash between “religious freedom and antidiscrimination principles.” But actually it was a proxy war. Neither religious freedom nor antidiscrimination clashed as such. At issue was the refusal of California’s Hastings School of Law […]
Drop kick me Jesus
By Mark Silk — October 16, 2009
For the past six years, the cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School in the northwest corner of Georgia had taken to displaying Bible verses on banners such as the above, through which their football team would burst onto the field. Then, last month, the banners were banned on advice of counsel, after a local woman […]
Secular and Religious
By Mark Silk — October 13, 2009
Bruce Ledewitz makes a worthy case over on Religion Dispatches that the Mojave Cross, whose constitutionality the Supreme Court will determine in Buono v. Salazar, can properly be understood as combining secular and religious meanings. Its original purpose was, simply and secularly, to memorialize the fallen in World War I, crosses having become a symbol […]
That old secular Mojave cross
By Mark Silk — October 8, 2009
A few days ago, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and one of the Pooh-bahs of conservative evangelicalism, had this to say about the upcoming argument before the Supreme Court in Salazar v. Buono, the case of the Mojave cross. Arguing for the retention of the display, lawyers for the government […]
The Mojave Cross…
By Mark Silk — September 29, 2009
…now covered in plywood, goes before the Supreme Court next week, and according to WaPo: “If the court reaches the constitutional issues at hand, all sides agree it could provide clarity to the court’s blurry rules on church-and-state separation.” It could also not provide clarity–and that’s what I’m betting on. For sure, the court will […]
On the faith-based hiring warpath
By Mark Silk — September 18, 2009
Yesterday, 57 religious and civil liberties groups delivered themselves of a letter to Attorney General Holder asking that the Justice Department dump the 2007 memo from the Bush justice department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that justifies religious discrimination in hiring, based on the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Many of the signatories were […]
Jindal the evangelical
By Mark Silk — September 4, 2009
Welton Gaddy, president of the Washington-based Interfaith Alliance and pastor of a liberal Baptist church in Monroe, La., has gotten into a spat with La. Gov. Bobby Jindal over the latter’s practice of helicoptering up to north Louisiana of a Sunday at state expense to attend services and press the flesh at one or another […]
Health Reform, voucherized
By Mark Silk — August 31, 2009
Not so long ago, religious conservatives were vigorously making the case that the way to respect the Establishment Clause (i.e. separation of church and state) while permitting government funding of religious primary and secondary schools was through vouchers. Sure, the government should not directly fund educational institutions that did religious indoctrination, but by subsidizing education […]
Here we go again
By Mark Silk — March 18, 2009
David Brody, tipster of the religious right, sent out an alert yesterday that thunderclouds are gathering over President Obama’s first big judicial nomination–federal district judge David F. Hamilton of Indiana to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The source of the problem is a 2005 ruling (Hinricks v. Bosma) in which Hamilton turned thumbs down […]
Stemming the opposition
By Mark Silk — March 8, 2009
For the third time, the Obama White House has taken the quiet approach to hot-button Life Issue by making its intentions known late of a Friday afternoon. On January 23, there was its decision to reverse the so-called Mexico City policy of not funding international agencies that provide abortions or information on obtaining them. On […]
