When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
Part of the guest group at the 2005 Religious Liberty Awards Banquet in the Russell Senate Caucus Room Religious liberty is one of the most important issues on the world's agenda today," said United States senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York. She made the case for both freedom of religion and the right
READ MOREAs we have been told innumerable times since September 11, 2001, "We are at war." If you read most any newspaper most any day you will read tales of horror and carnage and see gratuitous photos of the dead and dying—mostly Iraqis. For a number of reasons, probably well thought out, we don't see many
READ MOREAt the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, when asked whether we had a republic or a monarchy, Benjamin Franklin replied, "A republic – if you can keep it!" Thomas Jefferson once said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Preserving democracy does, indeed, take work. It must have an educated and active citizenry. Constructive input,
READ MORESome people think that it is perfectly proper and wise to have the state support and propagate religion, if it is a good religion. But we believe that if it is a good religion, it is capable of propagating itself and needs no support from the state. If it is a bad religion, all but
READ MOREThe U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution "affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance of all religions, and forbids hostility towards any." Anything less than accommodation would require "callous indifference," which was never intended by the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Looking at the initial drafts of the First Amendment makes it clear that
READ MOREBut heading home after church might yield a starkly different type of show, which could lead the uninformed to check the radio dial to make sure they were still listening to Christian radio. For instance, one might hear the sharp rhetoric of Laura Ingraham, a conservative talk radio personality whose show "drives the liberals nuts."
READ MOREFew emperors of Rome possessed the learning and refinement of Marcus Aurelius. Power and pomp meant little to him; his great passion was for justice. Serving without salary, he supported himself and a host of court retainers from his own abundant riches. In a sensual age, he was a Stoic, who practiced temperance, self-denial, and
READ MOREBenjamin Gitlow's 1925 day before the United States Supreme Court opened the door to vigorous legal disputes testing First Amendment religious liberty guarantees in all jurisdictions. Hardly a church-state activist, Gitlow, an avowed anarchist, unleashed inflammatory rhetoric that pushed the limits of free speech under New York state law. The court responded with a ruling
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