Wednesday, January 26, 2005
For those who have been following the debate over the role played by children's media in the culture wars (exemplified somewhat comically by conservative complaints about Sponge Bob Square Pants), my brother has offered some thoughts over at Christianity Today.
Rob
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
A prominent newspaper editor in Poland has been fined for ridiculing Pope John Paul II. If authorities in Poland are serious about honoring the Pope, they may need to be reminded of the important role that free speech plays in the Church's vision of a robust civil society.
Rob
The folks at The Transatlantic Assembly have been having a provocative discussion (see here, here, and here) on whether there is an anti-Catholic bias at work in the EU.
Rob
FYI: Pepperdine's Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics will host a conference titled "Lawyers, Faith, and Social Justice: Our Responsibility to 'The Orphan, the Widow,' and 'The Least of These'" on February 4-5, 2005. Among the speakers will be MOJ blogistas Steve Bainbridge, Mark Sargent, and yours truly. For more information visit Pepperdine's website.
Monday, January 24, 2005
If you are around Notre Dame at 7 pm tonight through Thursday you might want to attend a conference called the Maria Goretti Project, which was planned by Notre Dame students, Anamaria Scaperlanda-Ruiz and Christina Dehan. The conference focuses on a Catholic understanding of womanhood and addresses the painful realities of violence against women. Although this conference is designed as a positive statement of authentic womanhood from a Catholic anthropology, I can't help but contrast it with the very secular anthropology at play in the "Vagina Monologues."
Speakers include Teresa Collett, Tracy McGinn, Amy McInerny, Nicole Garnett, and the two student sponsors. The event will end with a prayer service on Thursday evening. For more information, see the Notre Dame Ethics Bulletin.
Signed, a proud father
Friday, January 21, 2005
The 2005 World Report of Human Rights Watch includes an essay by Jean-Paul Marthoz and Joseph Saunders that examines the evidence for "growing conflicts between religious communities and the human rights movement." Here (thanks to Amy Welborn) is a link to an article in The Tablet, discussing the essay. According to the article:
While the authors pay tribute to covergence of faith and secular groups on human rights issues in the 1970s and 1980s, they argue that today, on issues “at the crossroads of religious dogma and human rights ideology, of personal moral conviction and public health, the points of divergence are growing”. The secular groups are seen as taking rights-based positions on freedom of speech, gender, sexuality, sexual orientation and – perhaps most pertinently – “women’s reproductive rights” that clash with the positions of many religious groups.
The article (and the essay) are too long to excerpt here. Check them out. I would particularly welcome Michael P's reaction, given his work on religion and human rights.
Rick
For those of you who are in the Colorado area near the end of the month, the 12th Annual Ira C. Rothberger, Jr. Conference, titled “Conscience and the Free Exercise of Religion,” will be held on January 28 at the University of Colorado School of Law. The conference is sponsored by the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law, the Keller Center for the Study of the First Amendment, and the University of Colorado Law Review.
The subject matter for the conference: “The Constitution enshrines freedom of religion but says nothing about conscience. Yet the framers made many references to conscience in describing their aspirations for constitutional liberty, and religious duties are often articulated in terms of conscience. The Twelfth Rothgerber Conference brings together prominent scholars to probe this enduring enigma and to explore other issues about religious freedom.”
The scheduled speakers and topics are as follows:
Martin H. Belsky, Dean and Professor, University of Tulsa College of Law: “A Practical and Pragmatic Approach to Freedom of Conscience”
R. Kent Greenawalt, University Professor, Columbia Law School: “Free Exercise and Parental Custody”
James W. Nickel, Professor, Arizona State University College of Law: “How the Basic Liberties Generate Freedom of Religion”
Gregory Sisk, Professor, University of St. Thomas School of Law: “How Traditional and Minority Religions Fare in the Courts: Empirical Evidence from Religious Liberty Cases”
Steven Douglas Smith, Warren Distinguished Professor, University of San Diego School of Law: "What Does Religion Have to Do with Freedom of Conscience?"
Kevin J. Worthen, Dean and Professor, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young Univesity: "Eagle Feathers and Equality: Insights on Religious Exemptions from the Native American Experience"
At least for officers, the Christian Legal Society student chapter manual prohibits "homosexual conduct" (along with fornication and adultery). As such, I'm not at all confident in liberalism's ability to distinguish between the CLS and the KKK. Let's assume that the student version of the KKK condemns violence and even allows racial minorities into its ranks provided that they swear allegiance to the principle of white supremacy. On what basis would the modern university spend funds supporting one group but not the other? (A response grounded in the distinction between the person and the conduct seems a non-starter in the wake of Lawrence.)
My inclination, for what it's worth, is to let both groups in and allow the marketplace of ideas to flourish. (My answer would certainly be different for an elementary school.) Under a marketplace approach, the university should be entitled to withhold student tuition funds from groups it opposes and promote groups it embraces, but it should not deny disfavored groups meeting space or official recognition, both of which are essential to the groups' campus viability.
Rob
Thursday, January 20, 2005
I appreciate Rob's thoughts on my own post, concerning the dispute between Arizona State University and the Christian Legal Society. I continue to believe, though, that the ASU editorial writer is way "off-base."
Rob asks, "would we be comfortable with the KKK operating at ASU, being funded by tuition dollars, and being permitted to exclude racial and religious minorities from its ranks?" No, we wouldn't. But in my view, the "discrimination" practiced by the CLS -- i.e., "if you want to join the Christian Legal Society, profess your Christianity" -- is simply not the same thing as Kluxer-style racism. And, frankly, it is a sad version of liberalism that asks us to pretend that it is.
ASU would, presumably, justify its "how about we fund student organizations!" enterprise as an effort to stimulate and express the wondrous diversity of the University community. As I see it, to simultaneously insist that student organizations construct themselves according to the tedious "no line-drawing, not ever" norms is to, well, indicate a lack of understanding of that enterprise.
Rick
I share Rick's discomfort with the treatment of the Christian Legal Society at Arizona State University, and I certainly do not equate the CLS with space aliens, but the student newspaper's editorial writer is not entirely off-base. Freedom of association becomes trickier when we're talking about freedom of university-funded associations. Would we be comfortable with the KKK operating at ASU, being funded by tuition dollars, and being permitted to exclude racial and religious minorities from its ranks?
Rob
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