Church-State
Baptists then and now
By Mark Silk — February 11, 2009
Here’s what Baptists used to sound like: Your petitioners believe that all mankind are entitled to equal rights and privileges, esp. the rights of conscience…and that all human laws which obliged a man to worship in any lawfully prescribed mode, time, or place or which compel him to pay taxes or in any way to […]
Sacred Canopy?
By Mark Silk — December 14, 2008
Andrew Sullivan rightly corrects Camille Paglia for claiming that marriage is a religious concept that should be left in the hands of religious institutions while the state should concern itself solely with civil unions and the legal rights appertaining thereunto. (The truth is that marriage was always the business of the civil order; the religious […]
My Old Kentucky Homeland
By Mark Silk — December 3, 2008
Last Friday, the Lexington Herald-Leader published a story by John Cheves revealing that Kentucky’s 2006 law organizing its Office of Homeland Security lists as its first duty “stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth.” That duty obligated the Office to publicize God’s benevolent protection in its annual […]
Faith-Based WH
By Mark Silk — November 11, 2008
A few days ago WaPo’s Michelle Boorstein and Jacqueline Salmon had a good piece on what the Obama administration may do with respect to faith-based social service funding. I have it on pretty good authority that there will in fact be an office of faith-based and community service in the Obama White House–though whether it […]
Whose Vision
By Mark Silk — October 18, 2008
Charlie Savage reports in today’s NYT that the Justice Department has posted on its website a fabled but hitherto secret memo permitting religiously based hiring discrimination on the part of an evangelical organization that received a $1.5 million grant to help at-risk youth. This question lies at the heart of the contention over the president’s […]
Patrolling the Wall
By Mark Silk — October 17, 2008
Ambinder has gotten hold of a memo from Obama’s South Carolina Faith Team that, he thinks, is close to crossing the church-state separation line. It’s got an endorsement letter from Rep. James Clyburne. It says Obama’s people will be reading the stuff every Sunday and sharing with others. It says nothing about pastors doing endorsements […]
Gay Marriage in CT
By Mark Silk — October 11, 2008
My state of Connecticut, source of some of the most important First Amendment cases in American jurisprudence, is now the source of another: Kerrigan, under which the State Supreme Court determined that that state’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the state constitution’s equal protection clause. Never before has a final appellate ruling come right out […]
Happy Pulpit Freedom Sunday!
By Mark Silk — September 28, 2008
Jay Sekulow understands that the “remedy” for the IRS rule against political endorsements from the pulpit is legislative. Why doesn’t the Alliance Defense Fund? Update: Here’s today’s AP story on the initiative. Melissa Rogers is seriously on the case, and the best place I know for your one-stop shopping. What’s odd about this whole exercise […]
What Pulpit Freedom?
By Mark Silk — September 27, 2008
The Gray Lady weighs in on Pulpit Freedom Sunday and, surprise of surprises, takes the dimmest of views. But while the editorial makes a couple of important points, it includes this odd statement: “The tax code mandate they are challenging has protected the separation of church and state by denying tax deductions for contributions to […]
Endorse
By Mark Silk — September 8, 2008
As you may recall, the conservative Alliance Defense Fund is holding a “Pulpit Initiative” on Sunday, September 28, during which some number of chergy will endorse, oppose, or otherwise engage in partisan political activity from their pulpits in order to challenge the federal law forbidding non-profits from engaging in such activity on pain of losing […]
Peter, Peter
By Mark Silk — July 5, 2008
Steinfels is in a bit of a twist over the separationist language on hiring in Obama’s faith-based initiative speech. No doubt, as Marc Stern told the Christian Science Monitor a few days ago, Obama will need to get more specific about what he means by non-discrimination in hiring for publicly funded programs run by faith-based […]
Faith Based
By Mark Silk — June 29, 2008
Once upon a time, in a country far away, what the president cared most about, and what most exercised public debate, was something called a faith-based initiative. The idea was that religiously inspired organizations could do a better job delivering social services than mere secular or, God knows, governmental agencies. Or at least could do […]
Hey, IRS!
By Mark Silk — June 21, 2008
Peter Steinfels pops the National Right to Life Committee for making Karl Rove the featured speaker at its annual convention July 4. The title of Rove’s remarks? “Renewing Life in America — An Old-Fashioned Political Rally.” Steinfels thinks this is too partisan by half for an organization that claims to be non-partisan–and, though he doesn’t […]
Oyez, Oyez!
By Mark Silk — June 20, 2008
Americans United (AU), the intrepid watchdog of the Wall of Separation, has emailed a fund raising appeal to help it stop “the Religious Right” from “coercing religious leaders to break the law!” (Exclamation point not added) What’s up? Well, the conservative Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has designated September 28 as a day for pastors to […]
Whose rights?
By Mark Silk — June 17, 2008
My friend Marc Stern, general counsel of the American Jewish Congress, has an op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times worrying about the implications of gay rights for religious liberty. What concerns him is that any religiously based objection to gay rights–such as a devout physician’s desire not to be compelled by law to inseminate a […]
