Many of the religious liberty cases that come before the Supreme Court concern relatively trivial matters. Richard Garnett, a professor of law and associate dean at the University of Notre Dame, reports on a case that actually matters:
The Supreme Court’s religious-freedom decisions are usually about symbols, speech and spending: war memorial crosses in the desert and Ten Commandments monuments near public buildings, scholarships that allow poor kids to attend parochial schools and funding for “faith-based” social services, Pledge of Allegiance, and so on.
In late March, the justices agreed to review a Michigan job-discrimination case with none of these familiar eye-catching and attention-grabbing features. It does involve, however, fundamental questions about church-state relations and the limits of government authority — questions at the core of the First
Amendment’s concerns — and it could prove to be among the court’s most important religious-liberty cases in many years.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
