How Much Liberty?
- July/August 2013
- July 1, 2013
The American tradition of separation of church and state was established, in part, on a pillar of “no aid” to churches, fueled by Jefferson’s rhetoric in his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which said: “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful
READ MOREThe Chiapas region of south Mexico has been in turmoil for decades. It would not be outrageous to describe the situation there as civil war. The resulting human tragedy has gained the attention of all defenders of civil rights; even though the world media have not dwelled much on the area. In the eyes of
READ MOREIt is not uncommon for those of a particular faith majority to fall short in their duty to others. No one doubts that this applies in parts of the world and at different times to both Christians and Muslims. Perhaps because of the horrors of the Holocaust, there has been a reluctance to speak of
READ MORET. S. Eliot wrote a lot of seriously layered poetry. Anyone who takes the merest peek at “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a 1915 paeon to angst, knows this—even if the poet himself claimed to not recognize most of what others dredged up. So I’ll happily quote from him, sure that I’m in
READ MOREMore than a century before Ohio science teacher John Freshwater found himself at the center of a battle over academic freedom in the classroom, namely, whether he has a right to urge his students to think critically about topics such as evolution, John T. Scopes faced a similar firing squad. In Scopes’ case, however, he
READ MOREOn March 27, 2013, in the northern Italian city of Ferrara, Patrizia Moretti stepped out into the public square near her office building, unfurled a poster-sized portrait of her dead son Federico Aldrovandi, and showed it to the crowd of protesters. The photograph was so unpleasant that some of the protesters doubted its authenticity and
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