The decision of Pope Benedict to leave the papacy has caught many Vatican watchers and experts by surprise. The decision to step down is based on his health although one would never really believe it given that peculiar class of human being- the liberal talking head. The detractors are usually of a few types. There are the so-called experts in Catholicism who view the religion | Read More »
Often overlooked in Election Day coverage, ballot questions are an example of direct democracy in practice. Although I would not want a California style “anything goes” system, sometimes the questions presented are of paramount importance. Not every state as of this writing has ballot initiatives in November. For those that do, some are of strictly local interest or tweak state government organization or operations. So, | Read More »
This morning, in a brief session, the Supreme Court released a single opinion, granted two cases for argument next term and turned down seven different appeals by terrorist detainees being held at Guantanamo. As I mentioned in a previous post, most of this litigation stemmed from the Court’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush where detainees were granted habeas rights. Then, the Court stated that it | Read More »
The main controversy over the Free Exercise of Religion clause of the First Amendment is how narrow or broad an interpretation is necessary. Here, the plain text of that clause is illuminating. The clause uses the word “exercise.” Today, as in the 1700s, the word infers action. In fact, that great “sacrosanct” Jefferson letter that permeates constitutional thought today specifically agrees with this idea in | Read More »
On Monday March 19, the Supreme Court denied three cases of interest- two involving religion in the abstract and another involving reapportionment and the census. The latter is a case being pursued by the state of Louisiana which seeks to invalidate the 2010 Census results. They claim that is inherently unfair and unconstitutional to count illegal immigrants as part of the population for reapportionment purposes. | Read More »
One would be remiss to ignore the Obama Administration’s latest example of hypocrisy, stupidity, and attack on religion. To recount, as part of Obamacare, it now appears that religious organizations must cover contraception in their offered health care insurance packages with employees. Obviously, this has raised the ire of the Catholic Church in particular. First, as a Catholic, I can safely say that many Catholics | Read More »
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