6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A diferent look at the separation of church and state in America, September 30, 2008
This review is from: The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (Paperback)
Dr. Sullivan gives a new look at what the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause mean in America. The case in Boca Raton clearly shows that the judicial system is at odds protecting our religious liberties and trying to sustain the idea that the state can not endorse any religion. We also get a look at the bias that some judges have against religions that are not of their own. A great read for students of law, religion, and the humanities.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Raises Important Questions, October 1, 2011
This review is from: The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (Paperback)
This book seems to raise important practical questions about what might be called the push-comes-to-shove end of religious freedom. The author's reasoning is very interesting and clear. It is not a question of the well established rights to believe and act in non-harmful ways in society based on one's creed or philosophy. It concerns the more particular question of how religion can be defined, and whether the state can really do it. Hence, the title is not quite as much a sop to shock-value effort as it seems. Of course, one of the signs that the book contains some significant reasoning, instead of one more book of legal philosophy that treads water for hundreds of pages, is that reactionaries don't like the obvious conclusion the author draws from it. Namely, equality. Reactionaries are all for freedom and pluralism, as long as their point of view is in some way ascendent and proscriptive of law. If not, they find a way to argue against it. And you have to give some of the Catholic reactionaries, such as those at the Mirror of Justice, points for creativity, There they are all in cahoots with Rick Garnett's "Natural Law Manifestos" the dude's flamboyant sense of things still makes me chuckle) to implement a conservative Catholic agenda for a society that charmingly clearly has little interest in it, at least explicitly. Further, they are supporting and representing a legal theory for an institution that not only had precious little interest in any form of religious freedom for most of its history, but fought it in every single way. This was not just in the distant past, but even quite recently --even after Vatican II had made clear a often different public presentation for the Church-- in parts of Latin America, where the most blindingly revanchist politics were undertaken in the name of the Church. And with all this, these are the same people who will have the gumption to lecture others on religious freedom!! It takes your breath away. Not only that, with admittedly great cleverness they are now working to provide their own unique conceptual circumscription of the very workability of religious freedom. Robert John Araujo, a brilliant Catholic apologist, whose mental dexterity is only matched by his utter lack of even-handedness and ultimate intellectual ethics, is now defining religious freedom as completely prior to the state. The same sort of argument they make to try to keep gay people from marrying. It is all so predictable. They use the simple fact that the practical issues vis-a-vis this complex matter are not utterly clear to swindle by another attempt to circumscribe the very ambit of real freedom with their Aristotelian schema. They get points, as I said, for cleverness, even though they always seem to have the same tactic. But they are vastly rude to their fellow citizens, and very naive about the vigor of those who oppose their arrogance, and the now vast predictability of their project.
Here is Araujo, in his own words:
"In the context of Catholic legal theory, the right of religious freedom is important. But it is more than that. This right prompts the question in CLT regarding the role and authority of the state. In the context of the Mirror of Justice project, religious freedom is a right--like the human person, the family, and the non-derogable rights--that precedes the state. [Though the question is complicated admittedly, for this guy to pretend that he does not know that it was ONLY the modern liberal secular state that made these rights and freedoms possible, often fighting Araujo's church tooth and nail, is just the most funny bit of unconsciousness in a person I have ever heard!!] For the state to construct a theory of the right as one based on equality is an ultra vires exercise of its proper and limited authority. At most, the state is its protector by obligation, not its definer by right.
With people like Robert John Araujo one almost wants to write a book with the shock-title: The Impossibility of Catholic Freedom
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
