Picture by Boris Stefanik on Unsplash. One sunny spring day in 2018, I walked into work to find a flier asking its readers “are you tired of feeling bad for being white?” The flier advertised a white supremacist organization called “The Right Stuff” with links to its website. I was surprised and quite concerned to…
The U.S. Constitution was enacted “in Order to form a more perfect Union,” and serves as the founding generation’s clarion call to all succeeding generations: The union isn’t perfect, and we must do our part to make it more so. When it comes to protecting religious freedom for all, that means building on the promise…
Peace sign in Ukraine by Jack White on Unsplash. This article is part of our “Russia/Ukraine: Law and Religion Perspectives” series. If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. When Russia’s war against Ukraine began, journalists in Russia were instructed to call it a “special operation,” not a “war.” Soon,…
Chambers of the US Supreme Court by Carol M. Highsmith. On March 24, for the third time in two years, the Supreme Court sided with a religious inmate on death row who wished to have his spiritual advisor in the room at the time he would be put to death. In the prior cases, the…
Picture by Boris Stromar on Pixabay. In fall 2017, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado. The key question was whether a Christian baker’s First Amendment free speech or religious free exercise rights permitted him to refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in violation of Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination…
A revealing episode For two years, governmental restrictions on communal worship during the Covid crisis have been a central issue on the law and religion agenda, drawing academic, judicial, and popular attention. Across the globe, governments responded to the pandemic by limiting religious meetings, as well as other public gatherings, in the interest of public…
Picture by Anna Sulencka on Pixabay. On Monday, May 2, 2022, an unknown person or persons leaked Justice Alito’s draft opinion for Dobbs v. Mississippi Department of Health, an opinion which would overrule Roe v. Wade. Roe, as is widely known, enshrines a putative constitutional right to abortion and is largely buttressed by Planned Parenthood…
Image: “Obergefell v. Hodges Decision Announced — June 26, 2015” by Matt Popovich. The conflict between gay rights and religious liberty is back (if it can be said to have left), this time in 303 Creative v. Elenis, a Supreme Court case which arrives under the guise of free speech. The religious claimant will almost…
Image adapted from The Fabulous Creature Buraq by unknown author and a painting by Nar Singh (Public Domain) A virtual conference sponsored by Canopy Forum and the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory (CSLR) featuring scholars, experts and practitioners who will examine the many religious traditions of South Asia and their diverse…
“Candlelight” from Pixabay (License) Prayer is everywhere. Everyone is disputing prayer, even though the First Amendment states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Or maybe the problem lies in the wording of the amendment itself. Establishment or free exercise? The Supreme Court has set numerous…