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  • Aphoristic History0

    When the United States Supreme Court decided in 1992 that invocations and benedictions by a clergyman at a public high school graduation violated the Establishment Clause, Justice Antonin Scalia dissented, asserting: "Justice Holmes' aphorism that 'a page of history is worth a volume of logic . . . ,' applies with particular force to our

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  • Liberty, Not Licentiousness0

    The historical evidence casts doubt on the Court's current interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause. The record instead reveals that its drafters and ratifiers more likely viewed the Free Exercise Clause as a guarantee that government may not unnecessarily hinder believers from freely practicing their religion, a position consistent with our pre-Smith jurisprudence. . .

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  • Day at the Races0

    It was bitterly cold in Massachusetts on Christmas Day in 1992, with temperatures plunging below zero. But neither the ice nor the Christmas season kept the faithful away from betting on their favorite greyhounds at the Raynham-Taunton Greyhound Park. George Carney, the track owner, had received permission from the state racing commission to open on

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  • Turf Wars0

    It was the most important and popular piece of religious liberty legislation since the First Amendment was ratified more than 200 years ago. It was suggested by the broadest coalition of religious groups ever assembled in the United States: Jews and Muslims, Buddhists and Baptists, Christian Scientists and Scientologists, Latter-day Saints and Seventh-day Adventists, and

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  • Iambs And Pentameters0

    CULTURAL RELATIVISM A man in Egypt was arrested for beheading his 25-year-old daughter. According to news reports, Marzouk Ahmed Abdel-Rahim refused Ashrah Mohammed Ahmed's request for the hand of Marzouk's daughter Nora, so Ashrah and Nora ran off and tied the knot anyway. Seven days later Abdel-Rahim hunted down the honeymooners and chopped off Nora's

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  • Obiter0

    Man "is born without his own consent; his organization does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of those who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control. . . . He

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