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Finding Shared Values In A Diverse Society: Lessons From The Intelligent Design Controversy, Alan E. Garfield
Finding Shared Values In A Diverse Society: Lessons From The Intelligent Design Controversy, Alan E. Garfield
Alan E Garfield
One of the nation’s more profound and volatile ideological divides is between fundamentalist religious adherents and secular members of society. This divide has been particularly salient in recent years as issues challenging traditional religious morality – abortion, gay marriage, and stem-cell research – have been exploited as wedge issues for political gain. In this Article, I join the efforts of other scholars to find a way to bridge the gap between religious and secular Americans. By focusing on one particularly contentious front in the religious-secular wars – the teaching of intelligent design – I am able to identify a value …
When Religious Practices Become Legal Obligations: Extending The Foreign Compulsion Defense, Michael A. Helfand
When Religious Practices Become Legal Obligations: Extending The Foreign Compulsion Defense, Michael A. Helfand
Michael A Helfand
The purpose of this article is to fashion a religious compulsion defense as an outgrowth of the legally recognized foreign compulsion defense. Contra the rationale advanced in Employment Division v. Smith, the article argues that the rationale behind the foreign compulsion defense - to protect individuals from conflicting legal norms of competing legal systems - should also apply to situations where religious law and United States law collide. In adopting the criteria of the foreign compulsion defense, a religious compulsion defense would extract individuals from conflicts of law, protecting individuals in the throes of the most intractable of dilemmas.