Law & Order
Report
What Ever Happened to the Common Ground on Abortion Reduction?
The temperature of abortion politics is usually at a steady boil. Over the past two years, it has been downright scorching. Last week, heated debates …
By John Gehring
Essay
North Carolina’s “Official Religion”: The Convoluted History of American States and Established Religions
Last week, in a move that seems more reminiscent of 1783 than 2013, North Carolina legislators proposed a bill declaring their right to establish an …
By Benjamin E. Park
The Table
How about a “Do Over” for the HHS Mandate?
Editor’s Note: The comment period for the latest proposed accommodation to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to provide contraception coverage ended on April 8. We …
By Francis J. Manion
The Table
Rhetoric Versus Reality: The Contraception Benefit and Religious Freedom
Editor’s Note: The comment period for the latest proposed accommodation to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to provide contraception coverage ended on April 8. We …
By Elizabeth Sepper and Alisha Johnson
Essay
Declaration of Conscience
On June 1, 1950, Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1995), a Republican Senator from Maine, delivered her “Declaration of Conscience” speech to the U.S. Senate. Though she …
By Margaret Chase Smith
Report
Same-Sex Marriage Comes to the Supreme Court
On March 26 and 27, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases—one challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the other California’s Proposition …
By Calvin Massey
Essay
Can Atheists and Muslims Support Freedom of Conscience Together?
Thomas Jefferson once wrote: “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks …
By Qasim Rashid and Chris Stedman
The Table
We Need Less Religion in our Politics and Less Politics in our Religion
A few weeks before last November’s election, a yard sign popped up in front of First Baptist Church of West Harwich, Massachusetts, not far from …
By Stephen Prothero
The Table
The Church’s Right to Religious Freedom (And its Place in the Public Square)
With the inauguration over, along with the 2012 election, it’s time to count casualties. The first, as in warfare, is truth. A second might be …
By Mary Ann Walsh
Interview
Roe v. Wade at 40: An Interview with Legal Scholar and Theologian Cathleen Kaveny
As of this month, it has been 40 years since the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. To mark …
By Marie Griffith