Religious Freedom and Gay Rights: Emerging Conflicts in the United States and Europe. Edited by Timothy Samuel Shah, Thomas F. Farr, and Jack Friedman

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-151
Author(s):  
Frank S Ravitch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
The United States

scholarly journals Immunizing the Flock: How the Pandemic Court Rewrote Religious Freedom

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Paul Baumgardner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The Past ◽  
The U.S

When coronavirus began to descend upon the United States, religious freedom advocates across the country sounded the alarm that citizens’ religious practices and institutions were under threat. Although some of the most extreme arguments championed by these advocates were not validated by our legal system, many were. This article explores the underappreciated gains made by religious freedom advocates before the U.S. Supreme Court over the past year. As a result of the “Pandemic Court”, religious freedom in the United States has been rewritten. This promises to radically change the educational, employment, and health prospects of millions of Americans for the rest of the pandemic and long afterwards.

scholarly journals Moving a Mountain: The Extraordinary Trajectory of Same-Sex Marriage Approval in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 237802311772765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Small Set ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Election Studies

Most public opinion attitudes in the United States are reasonably stable over time. Using data from the General Social Survey and the American National Election Studies, I quantify typical change rates across all attitudes. I quantify the extent to which change in same-sex marriage approval (and liberalization in attitudes toward gay rights in general) are among a small set of rapid changing outliers in surveyed public opinions. No measured public opinion attitude in the United States has changed more and more quickly than same-sex marriage. I use survey data from Newsweek to illustrate the rapid increase in the 1980s and 1990s in Americans who had friends or family who they knew to be gay or lesbian and demonstrate how contact with out-of-the-closet gays and lesbians was influential. I discuss several potential historical and social movement theory explanations for the rapid liberalization of attitudes toward gay rights in the United States, including the surprising influence of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Secularism and US Religion Jurisprudence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Corbin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Establishment Clause ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
Constitutional Jurisprudence

Religious surveys are finding greater percentages of Americans who self-identify as secular. At the same time, religious exemptions under the Free Exercise Clause have become more difficult to obtain. However, religion jurisprudence in the United States has not become more secular for two reasons. First, this greater unwillingness to grant constitutional exemptions reflects a shift in constitutional jurisprudence from “separationism” to “neutrality.” Rather than building a wall between church and state, the Establishment Clause is now interpreted to impose fewer restraints on state-sponsored religion. Second, statutes like the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act and its state counterparts have not only reestablished separationist era levels of protection for religious liberty but increased them. The result is a religion jurisprudence where religion is accommodated more than ever, while the state has more leeway to advance religion. This combination has unfortunate consequences for both secular people and core secular values, such as antidiscrimination.

The Global Shift in Attitudes toward Homosexuality

2018 ◽  
pp. 209-228
Author(s):  
Jeremiah J. Garretson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Attitude Change ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Attitudes Toward Homosexuality ◽  
Media System ◽  
European Values ◽  
Act Up ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
Free Media

This chapter broadens the scope of the book outside the United States and shows that advances in support for gay rights have been broader than previously thought. Using the World and European Values Survey, which have surveyed attitudes involving homosexuality since the 1980s, the chapter shows that on nearly every continent, there are countries whose attitudes have changed similarly to the United States. The chapter then shows that the major factors which divide countries that have seen change from those than have not are GDP and the size and freedom of each country’s media system. Countries with free and pervasive media, which allowed for the success of ACT-UP, saw attitude change. Those without free media or with little media infrastructure still harbour pervasive anti-gay attitudes. Tentative results on how political party systems effect gay rights support are also presented.

Religion as Spirituality

2020 ◽  
pp. 94-126
Author(s):  
Michael D. McNally
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sacred Places ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Sacred Lands ◽  
American Spirituality ◽  
Religious Claim

This chapter examines the failure in the courts of Native appeals to religious freedom protections for sacred lands, and it extends the previous chapter's analysis of the reception of Native claims to religion as religion. Where a religious claim conforms to the subjective, interior spirituality that has become naturalized in the United States, it has worked reasonably well in the courts. This is emphatically not the case where claims involve religious relationships with, uses of, and obligations to, land. The chapter explains how courts reason their way out of taking steps to protect Native American religious freedom when sacred places are threatened, a puzzling matter in that courts consistently acknowledge the sincerity of the religious beliefs and practices associated with those sacred places. Along the way the chapter develops a fuller sense of the workings of the discourse of Native American spirituality as it comes to control judicial comprehension of Native religious freedom claims.

United States: Exceptional Freedoms, Fabricated Fears

Hate Spin ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cherian George
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Constitutional Protections ◽  
High Degree

The United States has exceptionally strong Constitutional protections for free speech, but also for religious freedom. This chapter considers how this unique legal framework affects hate spin in the country. It finds that although hate speech can be expressed with a high degree of impunity, strong anti-discrimination laws limit the harms caused by such speech. Hate spin can, nonetheless, succeed in fostering fear and cultivating prejudice against minorities. The chapter examines how a network of anti-Muslim activists have used hate spin to campaign against mosque building, to oppose multi-cultural textbooks, and to introduce legislation protecting states from the fabricated threat of encroaching Muslim law. Beyond their stated goals, which may be frustrated by courts, these campaigns often have the symbolic purpose of spreading Islamophobia.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document