A right to be weird is a good reason to give religion special treatment

2020 ◽  
pp. 93-107
Author(s):  
Andrew Koppelman
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Divine Commands

Proponents of special treatment for religion are increasingly drawn to the implausible claim that (what someone takes to be) divine commands should always supersede human ones. A better account would acknowledge that religion is only one among many profound human concerns. The recognition that there is an enormous variety of deep and valuable commitments undergirds the claims of both gay rights and religious freedom. These can only be protected one at a time, and that is a sufficient reason for singling out religion for special treatment.

scholarly journals EQUAL LIBERTY, NONESTABLISHMENT, AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Legal Theory ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Laborde
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Liberal Theory ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Beliefs And Practices

Egalitarian theories of religious freedom deny that religion is entitled to special treatment in law above and beyond that granted to comparable beliefs and practices. The most detailed and influential defense of such an approach is Christopher Eisgruber and Lawrence Sager's Religious Freedom and the Constitution (2007). In this essay I develop, elucidate, and show the limits of the “reductionist” strategy adopted by Eisgruber and Sager. The strategy requires that religion be analogized with other beliefs and practices according to a robust metric of comparison. I argue that Eisgruber and Sager fail to develop a consistent and coherent metric and I further suggest that this failure is symptomatic of the broader difficulty encountered by liberal theory in fitting the concept of religious freedom into a broadly egalitarian framework.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Michael D. McNally
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Native Peoples ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Protestant Christianity

This introductory chapter argues for the continued relevance of religious freedom for Native claims. First, Native claims to religious freedom have often failed in court. Indeed, many Native peoples are understandably reluctant to speak of their traditions in the language of religion, given that their orientation to place does not conform to the conceptual shape of religion conventionally understood. Native peoples also have good reason to be reluctant because of frequent associations of the sacred with the secret. But the problem of Native American religious freedom goes far deeper. As a growing body of critical religious studies literature has shown, the reason that some religions do not fully count for religious freedom legal protection is because the particular characteristics of Protestant Christianity is naturalized and universalized at the expense of traditions characterized more by community obligations, law, and ritualized practice. A fourth criticism of engaging religious freedom is the legacy of the plain fact that religion has long been used against Native American peoples.

Liberals used to love religious freedom

2020 ◽  
pp. 13-20
Author(s):  
Andrew Koppelman
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
The Core ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Federal Statute ◽  
The Right

The idea of religious liberty was, for a long time, uncontroversial common ground between right and left. The idea of a private sphere that government must respect—an idea at the core of the gay rights movement—has its roots in dissenting Protestantism. It became the basis for the practice of religious exemptions from generally applicable laws. As recently as 1993, Congress almost unanimously enacted a federal statute codifying that practice. That law continues to produce results that liberals admire, protecting prisoners from arbitrary treatment and religious minorities, notably Muslims, from discrimination. If you want to protect the right to be different, this is a good place to start.

Religion, Equality, and Anarchy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micah Schwartzman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
The Law ◽  
Political Decision Making

Recent debates about whether the liberal state should give special treatment to religion focus mainly on two issues: (1) whether religious beliefs deserve special exemptions from the law, and (2) whether religious beliefs can serve as a justification for political decision making. Theories of religious freedom can be described in terms of how they respond to each of these issues. A general taxonomy of such theories makes it possible to draw systematic comparisons between them. It also reveals that competing theories face a familiar pattern of objections based on concerns about equality and anarchy. In important ways, these concerns motivate and constrain all liberal theories of religious freedom. Explicating the tension between equality and anarchy helps to clarify the central commitments and limitations of existing and possible theories. By process of elimination, it also suggests an argument for the appeal of political liberalism.

Must a cause be really related to its effect? The analogy between divine and libertarian agent causality

2007 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
W. MATTHEWS GRANT
Keyword(s):  
Good Reason ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Cosmological Argument ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Rule Out

According to a classical teaching, God is not really related to creatures even by virtue of creating them. Some have objected that this teaching makes unintelligible the claim that God causally accounts for the universe, since God would be the same whether the universe existed or not. I defend the classical teaching, showing how the doctrine is implied by a popular cosmological argument, showing that the objection to it would also rule out libertarian agent causality, and showing that the objection rests on an account of causality and sufficient reason that we have good reason to reject.

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