When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
Promoting religious freedom is what I do. I do it because I believe in it, not because I’m paid to edit Liberty magazine. But sometimes I wonder what it takes to convince the average person that religious liberty is important now. It’s often been said that everyone has their price—the early talkies comedian W. C.
READ MOREPerhaps no area in society exacerbates the internal tension in the First Amendment between the establishment clause and the free exercise clause than they public workplace. Disputes over religious expression in the public workplace present a constitutional clash between two First Amendment rights: (1) freedom of speech and religion and (2) church-state separation. Consider the
READ MOREA key priority for our government [is] establishing an Office of Religious Freedom. We announced our intention to do so in the Speech from the Throne on June 3 [ a Speech from the Throne is given at the official opening of a new Parliament]. And I repeated our commitment most recently at the United
READ MOREWhilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe the religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against
READ MORECharles Dickens began one of his essentially autobiographical tales by wondering aloud if he would prove to be the hero of his own life. Reality is so dynamic and changeable it is hard for anyone to know where their actions will lead them, or how they will bear up to the challenges of the day
READ MOREEditors' note: This is the fifth and final article in a series on the history of Christian persecution up to the end of the seventeenth century. The first, second, third, and fourth articles can be found here and here, here and here. In considering religious toleration, it is helpful to bear in mind that it
READ MOREOn July 15, 2011, with political headlines dominated by negotiations over the U.S. debt ceiling, another political story caught the nation’s notice. At the top of CNN’s political page that day, the story read, &”Michele Bachmann Officially Leaves Her Church.&”1 According to the report, the Bachmanns—members of the Salem Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minnesota, for
READ MOREIt was not asking if the pope is Catholic, but the answer to the chief justice's question of whether the pope is a minister had the same answer. Cheryl Perich's attorney Walter Dellinger knew better than to try to answer this rhetorical question, instead he had to dodge it. The Supreme Court found itself wrestling
READ MORESuppose a state desires to reward Jews—by, say,$500 per year—for their religious devotion. Should the nature of taxpayers’ concern vary if the state allows Jews to claim the aid on their tax returns, in lieu of receiving an annual stipend? Suppose the state of Hawaii, in its desire to preserve the ancient native Hawaiian religion,
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