The Supreme Court’s recent (and horrendous) ruling in the Hobby Lobby case dealing with workers’ access to contraceptives has turned the spotlight on the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the group that sponsored many of the legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. Read more
Editor's Note: "The Wall of Separation" today is re-posting an item that originally appeared on July 4, 2011. Happy Independence Day!
Last week, I gave a talk about church-state history at my wife’s church. I called my speech “The ‘Christian Nation’ Myth.”
Although I’m not an attorney, I laid out the case against the idea that the United States is some sort of officially Christian nation as one would in a courtroom, by marshaling the evidence. I put forth the following points: Read more
Editor’s Note: Today is the congressionally mandated National Day of Prayer. “The Wall of Separation” is pleased to offer this guest post by James C. Nelson, a retired justice of the Montana Supreme Court. Nelson was appointed to the court by Gov. Marc Racicot in 1993 and was reelected to the position three times, serving until his retirement in 2013. Read more
Today is Presidents’ Day. On this day, we often recommend that you spend some time reading some of the great statements on church-state separation uttered by chief executives like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, or John F. Kennedy’s famous 1960 speech on religious liberty. Read more
I still use a large desk calendar, one made out of paper. (Yep, I admit I’m a dinosaur.)
This calendar thoughtfully fills me in on holidays major and minor. On March 17, I can celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and Benito Juarez’s Birthday. I wouldn’t want to miss Administrative Professionals Day on April 23, and Victoria Day (May 19) is a big deal in Canada. For you internationalists, Oct. 24 is United Nations Day.
But one holiday that does not appear is Religious Freedom Day, which is today, Jan. 16. Read more
In about two weeks, the Family Research Council will hold its “Values Voter Summit,” an annual event that has become the largest gathering of the Religious Right in the country. Read more
Whenever I hear someone – especially a politician – say that the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, I just want to start screaming.
As I’ve pointed out many times on this blog and in other forums, that statement is inane and shows great ignorance of our founding principles. Religious Right figures started using it a few years ago, apparently believing they had stumbled onto something clever. In fact, they are simply spouting puerile nonsense. Read more
Bad news from Alabama: Gov. Robert Bentley (R) has signed a neo-voucher bill designed to divert tens of millions in public funds to religious and other private schools. Read more
