Photo by kkolosov on Pixabay This article is part of our “Reflecting on COVID-19” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Like most of us these days, we were sitting on the couch. My husband said grimly, “Let’s see what’s going on in the world…” and turned on the news. The…
Image by Pexels from Pixabay “The Blaine Amendment was ‘born of bigotry.”’ Reasonable people can certainly disagree over whether Chief Justice John Roberts’ forceful words in the opinion of the five-to-four judgement in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Taxation, which produced seven different opinions, was the stake through the heart of the anti-Catholic Blaine Amendments…
Photo by michael_schueller on Pixabay Over the last decade, the internet has been abuzz with complaints from white American Christians that they are the victims of a broad secularist and leftist persecution. Stung by the decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, bewildered by demographic research demonstrating their new minority status, and ever more desperately aligning their…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “Russian Authorities Sentence Jehovah’s Witness” Adrienne Phillips The Russian Constitution of 1993 states that, “Everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of conscience, the freedom of religion, including the right to profess individually or together with others any religion or to profess no religion at all, to freely choose,…
Black and Silver Laptop Computer, Jolo Diaz, Pexels Last month, for the first time ever, Twitter fact-checked two presidential tweets. In response, President Donald Trump issued an executive order which would, in essence, eliminate a pillar of U.S. internet law, the protections contained in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230). CDA 230…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “I Swear to God: Oaths, Accommodations, and the Binding of Conscience” Matthew P. Cavedon Watch any courtroom drama and you know something serious is about to happen when a witness takes an oath. In the typical Hollywood version, it goes like this: “Do you swear to tell the…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 This article is part of our “Reflecting on COVID-19” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. “Mass Gatherings – COVID-19 Quarantines, Religious Rights, and Criminal Law” Matthew P. Cavedon COVID-19 has become the sort of generational event that September 11, the fall of the…
Photo by jaefrench on Pixabay This article is part of our “Reflecting on COVID-19” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. As COVID-19 tightens its lethal grip on the globe, a palpable tension emerges between the authority of governmental officials in every state in the U.S. who have issued guidelines limiting social interactions to…
Photo by Queven on Pixabay This article is part of our “Reflecting on COVID-19” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Congressman Clay Higgins, representing Louisiana’s Third Congressional District, recently drew attention for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the congressman addressed a letter to Louisiana’s Governor John Bel Edwards…
Photo by Pixabay on Pixabay (CCO) An earlier version of this essay was published here, on Diresom. This article is part of our “Reflecting on COVID-19” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. On February 19, 2020, I received the first of many phone calls from the media about a new…