On the Square Today

Thomas S. Hibbs explains why Ken Starr, the former independent counsel whose report led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton, was recently chosen to be the new president of Baylor University :

Defying expectations about what the search committee was up to, this election of Judge Starr as Baylor’s next president was a surprising choice. As a colleague said when the news broke, “I could not have been more surprised if you told me it was SpongeBob.” Initial press reporting has been, as expected, mixed, but even the Houston Chronicle, which has hardly been friendly to Baylor’s leadership in recent years, delivered a quite positive article about the appointment.

Also today, Ashley Samelson of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, discusses why its not enough for the Obama administration to merely defend “freedom of worship” :

To anyone who closely follows prominent discussion of religious freedom in the diplomatic and political arena, this linguistic shift is troubling.

The reason is simple. Any person of faith knows that religious exercise is about a lot more than freedom of worship. It’s about the right to dress according to one’s religious dictates, to preach openly, to evangelize, to engage in the public square. Everyone knows that religious Jews keep kosher, religious Quakers don’t go to war, and religious Muslim women wear headscarves—yet “freedom of worship” would protect none of these acts of faith.