In 1968, sociologist Peter Berger prophesied that by “the 21st century, religious believers are likely to be found only in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture.” Sixty years later, few predictions have aged worse. Religion, and subsequent religious advocacy, is not retreating from public life—it is increasingly becoming an effective political […]
Tag: religious freedom
France’s Ban on Religious Symbols Violates Free Expression
France, a nation with a history entangled with the church and fraught with religious conflict, has become staunchly secularist in modern politics, prompting a decades-long political controversy over the existence of Islamic symbols in public schools. On September 4, 67 girls were sent home from French public schools after refusing to remove their abayas, a […]
A Fight Over Foster Care, Religious Freedom, and Equality
Catholic Social Services has been providing foster care in Philadelphia for more than 200 years. Referred to as CSS, the agency claims to support “more than 3,100 people every day.” There’s just one problem: CSS refuses to include same-sex couples in the adoption process, citing its strong religious belief that marriage is between one […]
France’s Burkini War: Conflating Islam and Terrorism
On July 28, the French Riviera town of Cannes implemented a new law that would quickly become a trend: they banned the wearing of the “burkini”, a full-body covering swimsuit that allows conservative Muslim women to cover up while at the beach. A number of coastal French towns soon followed suit, leading to incidents such […]
The Road to Indiana
Governor Mike Pence of Indiana recently signed into law a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which shares a near identical title to twenty other states’ acts and one federal law signed in 1993 under the Clinton administration. Taken on face value, it seems to be a rather unremarkable event with plenty of precedence; however, critics exploded […]