February 16, 2012
By Mark Rienzi
In an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” a creepy man comes to the door of a poor family’s house holding a box. He offers them the following proposition: If they will push a button on the box, two things will happen. They will receive a large sum of money. And someone far away, whom they do not know, will be killed.
The family struggles over the moral implications of the choice. They need the money but are concerned about the killing. They know if they press the button, they will be causing someone to die. But they are not actually killing anyone directly — they are not plunging a knife or firing a gun — so perhaps they are not really doing anything wrong in pushing the button.
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Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?
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February 15, 2012
Diverse group of more than 300 academics and religious leaders call Obama’s HHS statement “Unacceptable”
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February 14, 2012
Yesterday, in Woburn, Massachusetts, a state court judge heard arguments on whether the Pledge of Allegiance should continue as a ritual in Acton-Boxborough school district. In the fourth in a series of lawsuits against the Pledge of Allegiance, secular Humanists have sued the school district, asking the Court to remove the words ‘under God’ from the Pledge. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty argued on behalf of schoolchildren, their parents, and the Knights of Columbus who value the tradition and the philosophical meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance and its place in the education of schoolchildren.
The secular Humanist Plaintiffs in this case have tried a new twist on an old theme, focusing on the argument that the Pledge discriminates against Atheists, rather than that it establishes a religion. But their premise requires the same old arguments rejected in past cases: that the Pledge is a prayer or a theological statement. The Becket Fund has successfully refuted this argument in federal courts by explaining that the words ‘under God’ have the important political meaning that our rights are not limited by the state, but come from a higher power. The other aspect of this case that has not changed is the fact that all students have the right to decline to say the Pledge. This right was established by the Supreme Court in 1943, but Plaintiffs, like the Atheists in the cases before them, continue to argue that this is not enough. They wish to silence those who, like our clients, wish to continue to say the Pledge in its entirety.
The judge took the case under advisement, and we expect to see her decision in the coming months. There is no telling how the case will come out, but we hope that Massachusetts will uphold the philosophy of our founders and allow our clients to continue saying the Pledge. Stay tuned for round four!
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February 10, 2012
Over 300 leading scholars, university presidents and other academic administrators, activists, and religious leaders from a multitude of faiths, have joined together in a statement rejecting the HHS mandate requiring employers to provide, directly or indirectly, insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations, and contraceptives, and also rejecting President Obama’s so-called “accommodation” of religious liberty as a mere “accounting trick” that changes nothing of moral substance.
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February 9, 2012
In short, the “Hawaii Compromise” is not a compromise and is not constitutional
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