Tag: religious liberty
The first federal criminal case on female genital mutilation will test the limits of religious liberty.
August 17, 2017 | Post
Six people in Michigan — including two doctors, two assistants, and the girls’ mothers — have been charged with participating in the mutilation of two seven-year-old girls.
The right to refuse service? Business owners and gay marriage
June 20, 2017 | Post
Steve Tennes, an orchard owner in Michigan, recently refused to host a same-sex wedding on his property. Is that his right?
Do government employees have a right to religious liberty?
April 1, 2017 | Post
Religious liberty is a fundamental right, but what should happen if the law asks bureaucrats to choose between their religion and their job?
Anne Hutchinson: The spirit of religious liberty
March 27, 2017 | Post
Opinions of Anne Hutchinson have, shall we say, covered the waterfront. In his masterful tome, Conceived in Liberty, 20th-century economist and libertarian historian Murray Rothbard cast her as a staunch individualist and the greatest threat to the “despotic Puritanical theocracy of Massachusetts Bay.” John Winthrop, the 2nd, 6th, 9th, and 12th governor of the Massachusetts […]
Civil servants should not lose their jobs for committing thought crimes.
February 14, 2017 | Post
A government commission has recommended that a civil servant be removed from his post because of his thoughts. A scene from George Orwell’s 1984 or the dystopian novel Kallocain? Alas, no. Welcome to present-day Oregon. On January 25, 2016, Oregon’s Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability recommended that Judge Vance Day be removed as a […]
Does the constitution require a war on Christmas?
December 25, 2016 | Post
“In no way did America’s Founders — especially those men who drafted and ratified the First Amendment — desire to build a wall of separation between church and state.” — Mark Hall
Trump’s Secretary of Education pick is good news for religious freedom.
December 9, 2016 | Post
However, DeVos’s nomination has come under assault because she supports vouchers that enable parents to, among other options, send their children to religious schools.
Clergy should be able to preach without fear
October 26, 2016 | Post
In the absence of a compelling interest, such as preventing physical harm, governments have no right to control what goes on inside of churches and other houses of worship.
Should the government step in to outlaw discrimination?
October 22, 2016 | Post
National and state governments often create accommodations to protect religious individuals from neutral, generally applicable laws, but they have also passed laws affirmatively protecting religious citizens from discrimination by both private and governmental entities. Most prominently, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, prohibits employers with more than 15 employees from […]
France’s burkini ban fights Islamic oppression with secular oppression
October 21, 2016 | Post
Imposing the values of secularism on “oppressed” Muslim women who wish to buy burkinis merely replaces one form of religious oppression with another.
Religion vs. Abortion, Explained
October 4, 2016 | Post
There is no denying that protecting religious actors who are licensed by the state to provide medical services is one of the most complicated policy areas in which religious citizens have been accommodated.
Peyote, Alcohol, and Religious Liberty
September 28, 2016 | Post
In this seventh installment in his series on religious liberty, Prof. Mark Hall explains how legislators have carved out exemptions to the Controlled Substances Act to protect religious ceremonies involving controlled substances.
How the Amish Led the Fight Against Compulsory Schooling
September 12, 2016 | Post
Because students educated at home or in private schools regularly outperform students in public schools, it seems reasonable to conclude that such accommodations have not had a detrimental effect on the quality of education in these states.
Dear France, Stop Encouraging Terrorism and Oppressing Women
September 5, 2016 | Post
A woman who chooses to wear a burqa, burkini, or headscarf is exercising her right to dress herself how she wishes—the same right enjoyed by women who wear bikinis or even nothing at all on French beaches. French authorities aren’t liberating Muslim women by forcing them to change their clothes. They’re oppressing them.
Some Reflections on Whether We Should Abandon Religious Liberty
August 22, 2016 | Post
Impinging on religious liberty rarely, if ever, benefits the commons good, as Professor Mark Hall explains in this first installment in a series on religious liberty.