Word: religione
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...sign of the times. An unprecedented wave of similar suits has clogged the lower courts in recent years, propelled, say legal experts, by several developments: stricter rules in the aftermath of gang violence and school shootings, a crackdown on alarming Internet comments and a perceived hostility toward religion in public schools...
Mike Johnson, an attorney for the ADF, criticizes the decision as illogical: "Certainly the First Amendment has got to protect negative statements as well." Johnson views ADF lawsuits as helping public schools, rectifying what he calls the "intimidation and misinformation" that has made schools skittish about religion on campus. But the substantial cost that these and other suits impose on education has others deeply worried...
John F. Kennedy's election in 1960 was supposed to have laid the "religious question" to rest, yet it arises again with a fury. What does the Constitution mean when it says there should be no religion test for office? It plainly means that a candidate can't be barred from running because he or she happens to be a Quaker or a Buddhist or a Pentecostal. But Mitt Romney's candidacy raises a broader issue: Is the substance of private beliefs off-limits? You can ask if a candidate believes in school vouchers and vote for someone else...
...right next to the issue of whether a twice-divorced man has credibility discussing family values or whether changing one's mind on an issue like abortion is a sign of moral growth or cynical retreat. Unlike in 1960, today the argument is less about the role of religion in public life than in private. It is about what our faith says about our judgment and how our traditions shape our instincts--and about what we have the right to ask those who run for the highest office in the land...
...facing a double standard, born of a barely hidden bias. "It is unreasonable to demand that a Mormon candidate expose and defend his deepest beliefs in rational terms in order to reassure voters that he is of sound mind," he says. He warns Evangelicals hostile to Romney's religion against colluding with those he sees as hostile to all religions. "The secular left that does not like people of faith in the public square is very happy to have a group of Fundamentalists raise this issue and be a battering ram," Hewitt argues. But if purely theological challenge becomes acceptable...