In recent political memory, religious liberty was a value that brought together conservatives, libertarians, and progressives. As recently as 1993, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed by a nearly unanimous Congress and signed by a Democratic president. Today, the same value is a political liability. Bakers, photographers, and florists are being ruined, adoption […]
History is not static and it does not progress linearly. There was more free speech and unimpeded expression in 5th-century Athens than in Western Europe between 1934-45, or in Eastern Europe during 1946-1989. An American could speak his mind more freely in 1970 than now. Many in the United States had naively believed that the […]
Jeb Bush did something that only a few years ago may have seemed boring and unnecessary. But in the spring of 2015, it sounded downright bold. At a commencement address at Liberty University in Virginia on Saturday, he defended Christianity as good. More than three out of every four Americans claims Christianity as his or […]
They came with a battering ram.” Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house […]
My column of last week, The War Against Religious Liberty, addressed the combustible mixture of the antidiscrimination norm and religious liberty, as it applies to ordinary businesses that do ordinary things, like taking photographs and baking wedding cakes. In dealing with that issue, I implicitly accepted the common premise that the antidiscrimination laws as they […]