For the penultimate session of "Theorizing Religion" today, we read a recent blogpost by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan on the legal incoherence of notions of religious freedom:
We read this is as a reminder that, free as our discussions in the academy (and even in our private lives) might seem to be about what counts as religion, etc., in real life what's sanctioned is constrained by legal definitions woefully uninformed by research and reflection about religion in general and about the diverse hybrid realities of contemporary US religion in particular. Sullivan is calculatedly frustrating - she doesn't suggest a way out of our jurisprudential fix; there can't be a neutral definition of religion, fair to all comers. But we got mired in details about drug laws in Oregon, cemetery practice in Florida, contraception for employees of closely held craft supply megastores in Oklahoma... and that evangelical "wedding cake artist" in Colorado whose case was heard before the Supreme Court last week.
It all left a bitter taste. Why? Because religion is not nice? Because reality is messy, and law can't fix it? Because we can't all just get along? Because life isn't just one long liberal arts seminar?
The notion that religion exists and can be regulated without being defined is a fiction at the heart of religious freedom protection.
We read this is as a reminder that, free as our discussions in the academy (and even in our private lives) might seem to be about what counts as religion, etc., in real life what's sanctioned is constrained by legal definitions woefully uninformed by research and reflection about religion in general and about the diverse hybrid realities of contemporary US religion in particular. Sullivan is calculatedly frustrating - she doesn't suggest a way out of our jurisprudential fix; there can't be a neutral definition of religion, fair to all comers. But we got mired in details about drug laws in Oregon, cemetery practice in Florida, contraception for employees of closely held craft supply megastores in Oklahoma... and that evangelical "wedding cake artist" in Colorado whose case was heard before the Supreme Court last week.
