By Michael D. Peabody – RELIGION SEEMS to have taken center stage this election cycle. Obama’s program, “Joshua Generation Project” is designed to reach young evangelical voters. It is quite inspiring, actually. In March, Obama spoke at a commemoration of the march to Selma, and linked the Biblical story of Joshua to the Civil Rights…
THE LIGHTER SIDE: Stand-Up Comedy featuring A Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Jew, and an Atheist
While we often have to deal with very serious issues on ReligiousLiberty.TV, there is always room to see the lighter side of what it means to live together in a real world where people are able to follow their faith without interference from the state or others. A Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Jew,…
Alexis de Tocqueville on Democracy
“Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to remain free: as they cannot destroy either one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the…
Thought & Crime (Liberty Magazine – March/April 2008) – An Update
Update on “Thought and Crime” published in the March/April 2008 issue of Liberty magazine. You may recall that Pastor Stephen Boissoin had gotten himself in hot water with the Alberta Human Rights Commission when he wrote a letter to the editor of the Red Deer Advocate that was critical of the “homosexual agenda.” The community…
Balancing Government Secrecy and Accountability – What Should the Next President Do?
In attempting to increase national security, has the Bush administration gone too far in sacrificing accountability for secrecy? What does this mean for the next president? The American Constitution Society (ACS) has recently published a new issue brief by Geoff Stone, entitled, On Secrecy and Transparency: Thoughts for Congress and a New Administration, in which…
America’s Democratic Collapse – A Speech by Chris Hedges
On May 28, Pulitzer Award winning journalist, Chris Hedges, gave a speech at Furman University in South Carolina. Although we do not necessarily agree with all of it, it does raise some interesting points for discussion. Here is the speech -click on the link to read the rest at Alternet.org: I used to live in…
VIDEO: John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. on Religious Liberty
It seems like issues of a Presidential candidate’s religion have always been an issue in elections going back to the 1960s. In this video clip, John F. Kennedy discusses how he believes church and state should relate to each other. It also features a brief clip of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech….
VIDEO: Religious Freedom Worldwide Worsens (Voice of America)
A U.S. advisory panel on May 2, 2008 asked the State Department to expand the list of governments the U.S. considers the world’s worst violators of religious freedom. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom lists eleven “countries of particular concern.” The congressionally mandated panel also wants the U.S. to keep an eye on religious…
Religious Pluralism & America’s Christian Nation Debate: Revisiting the Intentions of America’s Constitutional Founders
By Gregory W. Hamilton The constitutional system of the United States of America remains the envy of the outside world despite the growing unrest of our European allies towards our country’s Administration, and the continual provocation against it by terrorists and a few hostile Arab-Muslim nations. Yet the greatest threat to our constitutional system comes…
NEWS BRIEFS: Global Privacy, Free Speech Issues
Study secretly tracks cell phone users outside US (AP) Researchers secretly tracked the locations of 100,000 people outside the United States through their cell phone use and concluded that most people rarely stray more than a few miles from home. The first-of-its-kind study by Northeastern University raises privacy and ethical questions for its monitoring methods,…