Conscience And Belief The Supreme Court And Religion

Available as a single volume or as part of the 10 volume set Supreme Court in American Society

The free exercise of conscience is under threat in the United States. Already the conservative bloc of the Supreme Court is reversing the progress of religious liberty that had been steadily advancing. And this danger will only increase if more conservative judges are nominated to the court. This is the impassioned argument of Religion on Trial. Against Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Chief Justice Rehnquist, the authors argue that what the First Amendment protects is the freedom of individual conviction, not the rights of sectarian majorities to inflict their values on others. Beginning with an analysis of the origins of the Constitution and then following the history of significant church-state issues, Religion on Trial shows that the trajectory of American history has been toward greater freedoms for more Americans: freedom of religion moving gradually toward freedom of conscience regardless of religion. But in the last quarter-century, conservatives have gained political power and they are now attempting to limit the ability of the Court to protect the rights of individual conscience. Writing not just as scholars, but as advocates of church-state separation, Hammond, Machacek, and Mazur make the strong case that every American needs to pay attention to what is happening on the Surpeme Court or risk losing the liberties of conscience and religion that have been gained so far.

Free to Believe investigates the protection for freedom of conscience and religion – the first of the “fundamental freedoms” listed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – and its interpretation in the courts. Through an examination of decided cases that touches on the most controversial issues of our day, such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and minority religious practices, Mary Anne Waldron examines how the law has developed in the way that it has, the role that freedom of conscience and religion play in our society, and the role it could play in making it a more open, peaceful, and democratic place. While the range of cases explored will be of interest to scholars, Free to Believe is also written in an accessible style, with legal terms and concepts explained for those who wish to learn accurate, detailed information about the impact of the law on contemporary social policy issues. As such, this book widens the debate about this fundamental freedom and the influence of public opinion on what is often a misrepresented and misunderstood issue.

Explores the multifaceted debate on the interconnection between conscientious objections, religious liberty, and the equality of women and sexual minorities.

When the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in 1982, the first of its fundamental freedoms seemed less significant and less interesting than many of its other rights. However, the Salman Rushdie affair, the 9/11 attacks, and later the publication of the "Danish Cartoons" helped to move religion or religious difference to the forefront of public consciousness. These events seemed to confirm that religion, or at least particular religions, represented a threat to the values of liberal-democratic society. Religious freedom issues that may have been minor and easily resolved "on the ground" were increasingly seen through this lens of intractable conflict, and as opening the door to a broader threat to Western democracy. In Canada, anxiety about religion has been far less acute than in Europe or in the United States. Nevertheless, concern about the character of religion has shaped the public reaction to religious diversity and freedom. This has been most powerfully so in Quebec where, as in Europe, national identity remains a concern, and the political role of the Catholic church in the recent past has caused many to be wary of the visibility of religion in the public sphere. The book reviews the basic history of religious freedom in Canada; looks at state support for religion, including the place of religious practices and symbols in public institutions and the role of religious values in public decision making; the restriction or accommodation of religious practices by state action; religious restriction in particular contexts; state support for religious schools; freedom of religion in the context of the family, and in particular, the parent-child relationship; and freedom of conscience component of section 2(a)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

"The relationship between the government and religion is deeply divisive. With the recent changes in the composition of the Supreme Court, the First Amendment law concerning religion is likely to change dramatically in the years ahead. The Court can be expected to reject the idea of a wall separating church and state and permit much more religious involvement in government and government support for religion. The Court is also likely to expand the rights of religious people to ignore legal obligations that others have to follow, such laws that require the provision of health care benefits to employees and prohibit businesses from discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation. This book argues for the opposite and the need for separating church and state. After carefully explaining all the major approaches to the meaning of the Constitution's religion clauses, the book argues that the best approaches are for the government to be strictly secular and for there to be no special exemptions for religious people from neutral and general laws that others must obey. The book argues that this separationist approach is most consistent with the concerns of the founders who drafted the Constitution and with the needs of a religiously pluralistic society in the 21st century"--

Secularism: the definition of this word is as practical and urgent as income inequalities or the paths to sustainable development. In this wide-ranging analysis, Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor provide a clearly reasoned, articulate account of the two main principles of secularism—equal respect, and freedom of conscience—and its two operative modes—separation of Church (or mosque or temple) and State, and State neutrality vis-à-vis religions. But more crucially, they make the powerful argument that in our ever more religiously diverse, politically interconnected world, secularism, properly understood, may offer the only path to religious and philosophical freedom. Secularism and Freedom of Conscience grew out of a very real problem—Quebec’s need for guidelines to balance the equal respect due to all citizens with the right to religious freedom. But the authors go further, rethinking secularism in light of other critical issues of our time. The relationship between religious beliefs and deeply-held secular convictions, the scope of the free exercise of religion, and the place of religion in the public sphere are aspects of the larger challenge Maclure and Taylor address: how to manage moral and religious diversity in a free society. Secularism, they show, is essential to any liberal democracy in which citizens adhere to a plurality of conceptions of what gives meaning and direction to human life. The working model the authors construct in this nuanced account is capacious enough to accommodate difference and freedom of conscience, while holding out hope for a world in which diversity no longer divides us.