Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn't Give You the Right to Tell Other People What to Do Author: Robert Boston | Language: English | ISBN:
B00F1W08LI | Format: PDF
Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn't Give You the Right to Tell Other People What to Do Description
A concise and lucid explanation of what religious freedom is and isn'tIncreasingly, conservative religious groups are using religious liberty as a sword to lash out at others. In this forcefully argued defense of the separation of church and state, Robert Boston makes it clear that the religious freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment is an individual right, the right of personal conscience, not a license allowing religious organizations to discriminate against and control others. The book examines the controversy over birth control, same-sex marriage, religion in public schools, the intersection of faith and politics, and the "war on Christmas," among other topics.
Boston concludes with a series of recommendations for resolving clashes between religious liberty claims and individual rights.
- File Size: 686 KB
- Print Length: 200 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1616149116
- Publisher: Prometheus Books (March 4, 2014)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00F1W08LI
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,643 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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About a year ago, I read Rob Boston's Why the Religious Right is Wrong about Separation of Church, a primer that brings all of the key Church and State issues together in a concise, digestible package. Boston's just released follow up - Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn't Give You the Right to Tell Others What to Do - offers the same clear, well-argued style that characterized his last book.
Now, in an ideal world, the opening line of Taking Liberties - "The Term religious freedom means the right to make decisions about theology for yourself."[emphasis mine] - would be enough to put this particular subject to rest.
But we're not living in an ideal world. Indeed, as it happens, Taking Liberties could hardly have arrived at a more critical juncture given the slate of bigoted proposals that are currently rifling around our country under the banner of `religious freedom.'
To paraphrase Boston loosely for a moment: If you're offended by gay sex, by all means, don't have it. Think pork is ungodly? Skip the ribs or stick with beef. And if you think contraception smacks of deviltry and your partner is on the same page, then either adopt the ascetic life or be fruitful and multiply like bunny rabbits. Religious freedom gives you the right to make all such decisions.
But honestly, if America wants to hold itself up as a beacon of democracy as it's done for two centuries, can we really afford to have our laws determined by medieval inquisitors like Antonin Scalia, a black-robed theocrat who openly admits to believing his particular interpretation of a repeatedly mistranslated collection of pre-scientific tales should trump the United States Constitution?
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