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“Religious Freedom,” The Individual Mandate, And Gifts: On Why The Church Is Not A Bomb Shelter, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
“Religious Freedom,” The Individual Mandate, And Gifts: On Why The Church Is Not A Bomb Shelter, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
The Health and Human Services' regulatory requirement that all but a narrow set of "religious" employers provide contraceptives to employees is an example of what Robert Post and Nancy Rosenblum refer to as a growing "congruence" between civil society's values and the state's legally enacted policy. Catholics and many others have resisted the HHS requirement on the ground that it violates "religious freedom." They ask (in the words of Cardinal Dolan) to be "left alone" by the state. But the argument to be "left alone" overlooks or suppresses the fact that the Catholic Church understands that it is its role …
“The Pursuit Of Happiness” Comes Home To Roost? Same-Sex Union, The Summum Bonum, And Equality, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
“The Pursuit Of Happiness” Comes Home To Roost? Same-Sex Union, The Summum Bonum, And Equality, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
John Locke understood human happiness to amount to the removal of "uneasiness." This paper argues that,to the extent that the United States is a nation dedicated to "the pursuit of happiness" understood as the removal of "uneasiness," same-sex unions or marriages should be given legal recognition. While Locke defended a variation on traditional marriage on the grounds of progenitiveness and care for dependent offspring, his more foundational commitment to the importance of the removal of uneasiness precludes, on pain of inconsistency, limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. This paper argues, furthermore, that conservatives and neo-conservatives who celebrate this nation's being …