Category: Religion

Claims of Conscience

Religious Freedom and State Power

Commonweal
3 May, 2013

William Galston

Is religious conscience special? And what kinds of claims (if any) does conscience warrant? These are two of the many questions Brian Leiter raises in his provocative book Why Tolerate Religion? (Princeton University Press, $24.95, 192 pp.).

Note that in principle one could answer the first question in the negative—by denying the distinctiveness of religion—while endorsing broad claims for conscience as such. Imagine a two-by-two table: In the upper left quadrant is an expansive notion of conscience coupled with a broad conception of conscientious claims; in the bottom right is conscience restricted to religion with few or no claims to which the law must yield. The two remaining quadrants are broad/narrow and narrow/broad, respectively.  [Read more . . .]

Global Charter of Conscience: A Global Covenant Concerning Faiths and Freedom of Conscience

The Charter has been drafted by people of many faiths and none, politicians of many  persuasions, academics and NGOs, all committed to a partnership on behalf of “freedom  of thought, conscience and religion” for people of all  faiths and none.
Full Text

Religion: A Public or a Private Right?

Originally appeared in  Public Discourse:  Ethics, Law, and the Common Good
Online journal of the Witherspoon  Institute of Princeton, NJ

 Susan Hanssen*

Twentieth-century religious liberty jurisprudence developed on the far side of a great historic chasm that separates us from the traditional definition of religion. Between Americans in 2012 and the American founders in 1776 stand William James and the beginnings of the “science of comparative religions.” If we are to grasp the founders’ idea of a natural right to religious liberty, we must perform a labor of historical imagination and recover the longstanding definition of religion that has been lost to us.

The classic book that launched the social scientific approach to the study of religion was James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience (1903). The book was initially his series of lectures at the University of Edinburgh—the prestigious Gifford Lectures. James deliberately refused to accept the usual title “Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology” for his series of talks and chose instead to call them lectures in “Natural Religion.” He assumed that religion was not, as the word “theology” implied, subject to any rational justification. Rather, he saw religion as essentially experiential and the study of religion as essentially empirical—the collection of a variety of accounts of wildly divergent spiritual experiences. . . [Read more]

Update on American HHS birth control mandate controversy: March, 2013

A judge of the St. Louis Federal District Court struck down parts of a Missouri law  ensuring freedom of conscience for those objecting to paying for contraceptive coverage and abortion drugs in their health plans. [St. Louis Review]  To date, 10 amicus curiae briefs have been filed by Americans United for Life in support of lawsuits against the U.S. federal government regulation that requires objecting business owners to provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives, embryocides, and surgical sterilization. [AUL news release]   The chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities,has asked members of the U.S. House of Representatives to support the Health Care Conscience Rights Act of 2013.H.R. 940, which includes provisions to prevent objecting businesses or individuals from being forced to provide  health insurance coverage for contraceptives, embryocides, and surgical sterilization. [USCCB news release]  Attorneys General of 13 states (Ohio, Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia) have written to the federal government asking that the proposed exemptions for objectors to the regulation be broadened to include private employers. [Columbus Dispatch].  More than 147,000 people and groups have made formal comments about the proposed regulation, 30 times more than the comments made on the next most-commented-upon rule. [The Hill]  Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate, which is controlled by the Democratic Party, voted down a measure that would have stopped funding for enforcment of the regulation.

 

 

Can Atheists and Muslims Support Freedom of Conscience Together?

 Religion and Politics

Qasim Rashid and Chris Stedman

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 my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

For many of us, it’s easy to appreciate Jefferson’s eloquently stated advocacy of religious freedom of conscience, as well as the idea that all individuals should be able to express religious or nonreligious positions independent of others’ beliefs. Likewise, at the United Nations, both the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the binding International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantee “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” to all individuals. But, in spite of international agreements and Jefferson’s beautiful words, the reality is that these tenets are often forgotten. . . . Read more