Canopy Forum is a digital publication from the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University that produces and delivers expert analysis to the broader community of digital consumers: citizens, scholars, lawyers, clergy, journalists, policy makers, and more.
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“Sacred Stone Camp” by Tony Webster / Flickr / CC BY 2.0 The Standing Rock demonstrations, which began in early 2016 and lasted almost a year, have been aptly characterized as the largest Native American activist movement in modern history. More than 300 tribes and scores of water protectors gathered to protest against the construction…
“Dashboard Jesus” by Joseph Novak / Flickr / CC BY 2.0 Police are looking for drug runners near the Mexican border. They see a truck with a crucifix hanging from the rearview mirror. Can they factor this in as a reason to stop the truck? Surprisingly, most federal courts have held yes, albeit as a…
Cover Image: Mouth of the Klamath River on the Pacific Ocean, Del Norte County, California / Wikimedia. This essay continues our series of pieces exploring the relationship between Natural Law and Human Rights in light of the State Department’s recently convened Commission on Unalienable Rights. The Trump Administration’s new Commission on Unalienable Rights, recently convened…
“Arms-Fold” by Dorset Photographic is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 On September 12, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted habeas corpus relief to William Barnes, who had been previously sentenced to death in North Carolina. The basis for the court’s ruling was the fact that during deliberations at trial, a juror relied on…
Miquel Barceló’s ceiling at the UN headquarters in Geneva. United States Mission Geneva / CC BY-ND 2.0 This essay continues our series of pieces exploring the relationship between Natural Law and Human Rights in light of the State Department’s recently convened Commission on Unalienable Rights. The Commission on Unalienable Rights has already generated significant criticism,…
This essay is the first in a series of pieces exploring the relationship between Natural Law and Human Rights in light of the State Department’s recently convened Commission on Unalienable Rights. Attempts by the United States State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights to identify a subset of proper “unalienable rights” within the broader category of…
Daughters of Charity holy card. 1896. University of Dayton Libraries / Wikimedia Commons. My mother spent 25 years working for a Catholic hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. When she was hired in 1984, Catholic faith was a requirement for management, and nuns roamed the halls. For every five years of service, she received a new metal…
This fall I taught a graduate seminar on the history of religion in the United States. I have long been committed to transparency as the centerpiece of my pedagogy, which means that I take students behind the scenes of the historical profession and show them how the ideas they encounter in neatly-packaged articles and books…
Autonomy and dignity are standard grounds for arguments supporting the legalization of assisted suicide. The prima facie case is excellent: forbidding suicide limits human autonomy, and compelling people to live against their will diminishes their self-determination and therefore their dignity. Counter-arguments often rest on assertions about the supreme value of life, even when life lacks…
Cover image: “Baptistry” by patentboy is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 . What is the position of an individual who, having transitioned from one gender to another, seeks baptism within the Church of England? The sacramental nature of baptism is described in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and the requirements associated with the baptism itself in the Canons of the Church…