first amendment

Religious freedom has been at the center of American history since the founding. (And by the founding , I mean of the United States of America , not including the roughly century-and-a-half of…

Jack Rakove, the Pulitzer-Prize winning historian, is back with another prize-worthy book, Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience , a history of religious freedom in America. While Rakove warns readers that…

Thinking of these killers as “lone wolf” actors makes it easier to dismiss them as demented individuals, hapless victims of bad parenting, self-destructive misfits, or erratic evil doers. But we need to see these “lone wolf” white supremacists for what they are—members of “wolf packs.”

As the U.S. Supreme Court continues to mull the arguments of a baker who on religious grounds refused to design a custom cake for a same-sex wedding, two cases elsewhere this week suggested that…

It might be tempting to think that Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission—the upcoming Supreme Court case about a baker who refused to make a custom cake for a same-sex wedding…

Consider this faintly ridiculous hypothetical: I am in line at my local Subway sandwich shop, ordering my favorite sub with a generous helping of hot sauce. “I’m sorry, sir,” says the person behind…

Nine months into Donald Trump’s presidency, it should surprise no one to learn that his administration is going out of its way to restrict civil rights, rather than expand them. Nevertheless, a brief…

On Monday, the Supreme Court took a dramatically new approach to the First Amendment, though you wouldn’t have known it from reading the brief, oversimplified opinion. In Trinity Lutheran Church of…

For all his talk of protecting religious freedom, one of the First Amendment’s five sacred rights, it’s taken President Donald Trump less than one week to start kicking the legs out from under each of…

According to Bryant, the carve-outs in HB 1523 are no different than federal laws protecting pacifists from military conscription.