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Truth And Consequences: Mitt Romney, Proposition 8, And Public Reason, Frederick Mark Gedicks
Truth And Consequences: Mitt Romney, Proposition 8, And Public Reason, Frederick Mark Gedicks
Faculty Scholarship
Although formal religious tests for federal office are constitutionally prohibited, they have long been fact of political life in presidential elections. John Kennedy remains the only nonProtestant ever elected President. The "Judeo-Christian tradition" notwithstanding, no major party has ever nominated a Jew for president - let alone a Buddhist, Hindu, Mormon, Muslim, or unbeliever.
Against this electoral history, it was perhaps predictable that mainstream Christian commentators would feel free to legitimate religious attacks on Mitt Romney during the Republican presidential primaries on the ground that Mormonism is a "false" religion. Ironically, however, the Mormon church periodically intervenes in initiative and …
American Civil Religion: An Idea Whose Time Is Past, Frederick Mark Gedicks
American Civil Religion: An Idea Whose Time Is Past, Frederick Mark Gedicks
Faculty Scholarship
From the founding of the United States, Americans have understood loyalty to their country as a religious and not just a civic commitment. The idea of a 'civil religion' that defines the collective identity of a nation originates with Rousseau, and was adapted to the United States Robert Bellah, who suggested that a peculiarly American civil religion has underwritten government and civil society in the United States.
Leaving aside the question whether civil religion has ever truly unified all or virtually all Americans, I argue that it excludes too many Americans to function as such a unifying force in the …
Two Sides Of The Same Coin: The Potential Normative Power Of American Cities And Indian Tribes, Kevin J. Worthen
Two Sides Of The Same Coin: The Potential Normative Power Of American Cities And Indian Tribes, Kevin J. Worthen
Faculty Scholarship
People do not normally associate cities with Indian reservations. The mental images typically conjured by each term are radically different. Perhaps for that reason, few think of city governments and tribal governments in similar terms.
However, the two forms of government - cities and Indian reservations - have many things in common. Both are excluded from the federal constitutional framework. Both are subject to the plenary power of one of the constitutionally recognized governments - cities to the state government, tribes to the federal government. Both are the most intimate form of government with which most of their residents are …