It’s Here Before They Announce It

It was not until the outbreak of war, on September 1, 1939, that the Nazi regime became openly totalitarian and openly criminal. —Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin Books, repr. 1992), 68.

What The Nuns Once Did

This is so grotesque that they have probably concluded it is exceptional. On the contrary, thousands of British children are being snatched from their natural parents in secret each year, after totally unfair hearings against which it is almost impossible to appeal . . . Continue reading →

Scalia On The Lemon Test As Late-Night Ghoul

Like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorneys of Center Moriches . . . Continue reading →

Freedom From Religion Foundation v Lew: What Now? (New Links Added)

Links are being added below. Refresh the page for updates throughout the day. For elders and parishioners and not infrequently for ministers, clergy taxes are one of the more difficult aspects of ministerial finances. Those difficulties just became potentially greater last week. . . . Continue reading →

A Constitutional Crisis?

If civil freedom, including religious freedom, is the relative absence of restraint and the restrainers (those charged authority to uphold the law) are to be constrained by a constitution, then when the constitution is ignored freedom is necessarily jeopardized.

The Intoxicating Power Of Moral Superiority

A while back some of us were discussing the problem of political correctness on university campuses, freedom of thought and speech, and speech codes. If universities were meant to be places of open enquiry, where theories may be proposed and debated, then . . . Continue reading →

The Irony Of The Coming Dark Age (Updated Again)

The old schoolbook story of the middle ages describes the entire period as the “dark ages.” Of course that’s rubbish. There was a period of chaos in the early medieval period but there were also periods of remarkable learning and the renewal . . . Continue reading →

Liberal Education, Religious Freedom, And Weak Arguments (Updated Again)

Originally Published October 8, 2013. Updates below. The University of South Florida is at the center of another debate about religious freedom (HT: David Murray). This time it involves a planned event at which Dr. Rosaria Butterfield, a former Lesbian, is to . . . Continue reading →

Does The State Illegitimately Control The Church?

It has recently been argued to me that, in the various states, because the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act(s), the Uniform Child Custody Justice Enforcement Act(s), and because most congregations (and denominations) have formed non-profit corporations (in the USA congregations usually become . . . Continue reading →

Private Property, Public Accommodation, And Religious Freedom

There are such things as unintended consequences and Americans are impatient with injustice. There were real, gross injustices being committed against an entire class of Americans that led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act that forbids restricting access to “public accommodations” on . . . Continue reading →

Chaplain Quotes Eisenhower, Gets Censored (Updated)

Update 15 August 2013. Billy Hallowell reports that the military has reversed itself and has reposted the blog post that had been taken down. They’ve added a disclaimer for the column. § Original Post July 26, 2013 Ken Klukowski, Todd Starnes, and . . . Continue reading →