An Open Letter to America
- May/June 2012
- May 1, 2012
I have become convinced that unless a certain historic awareness becomes a present preoccupation, then a once-great republic is destined for the worst of old ages—a certain dementia that combines lack of energy with violent irrationality. I thought about this dynamic in the long months taken up with the primaries that precede the presidential election.
READ MOREAnyone who has kept up on current events knows about the proposed Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations that were announced in January. Designed to implement parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they required employers to include contraception services in the health insurance plans they offered their employees. The primary objection to
READ MOREUnder the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010,1 all employer health-care plans must provide—at no cost to the employee—certain preventive services for women.2 The inclusion of contraceptives—including abortion-causing contraceptives—in this mandated coverage has caused a public uproar, with religious groups opposed to contraception and/or abortion decrying the violation of their religious freedom. The ACA is
READ MORE&”Say not the struggle nought availeth, the labour and the wounds are vain, the enemy faints not, nor faileth, and as things have been, things remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; it may be, in yon smoke concealed, your comrades chase e’en now the fliers, and, but for you, possess the field.
READ MOREThomas Jefferson observed: &”It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.&” Many Americans today seem to disagree with Jefferson’s political philosophy that religious belief should not be an issue in judging a candidate’s fitness to be president.
READ MOREThirty years ago, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Widmar v. Vincent,1 holding that the free speech clause protects citizens’ religious speech, including religious worship. Such an unremarkable proposition should have been greeted by good-natured agreement that free speech and religious liberty principles—indeed, pluralism itself—require nothing less than full protection for citizens’ religious
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