Getting Over Equality : : A Critical Diagnosis of Religious Freedom in America / / Steven D. Smith.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Smith, Steven D.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2001]; ©2001
• Year of Publication: 2001
• Language: English
• Series: Critical America ; 5
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Questions of religious freedom continue to excite passionate public debate. Proposals involving school prayer and the posting of the Ten Commandments in schools and courtrooms perennially spur controversy. But there is also a sense that the prevailing discourse is exhausted, that no one seems to know how to think about religious freedom in a way that moves beyond our stale, counterproductive thinking on this issue. In Getting over Equality, Steven D. Smith, one of the most important voices now writing about religious liberty, provocatively contends that we must get over our presumptionmistakenly believed to be rooted in the Constitutionthat all religions are equally true and virtuous and "authentically American." Smith puts forth an alternative view, that the courts should promote an ideal of tolerance rather than equality and neutrality. Examining such controversial examples as the animal sacrifice case, the peyote case, and the problem of aid to parochial schools, Smith delineates a way for us to tolerate and respect contrary creeds without sacrificing or diluting our own beliefsand without pretending to believe in a spurious "equality" among the variety of diverse faiths.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Beyond Failure -- PART I HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION? -- 1 Blooming Confusion Religious Equality in the “Age of Madison” -- 2 Religion, Democracy, and Autonomy: A Political Parable -- 3 Is a Theory of Religious Freedom Possible? -- PART II WHAT SHALL WE DO? (or How the Supreme Court Can Stop Making Things Worse) -- 4 Unprincipled Religious Freedom -- 5 The Unhappy Demise of the Doctrine of Tolerance -- 6 Demons in the Discourse -- PART III CAN FAITH TOLERATE? -- 7 The (Compelling?) Case for Religious Intolerance -- 8 Theism and Tolerance -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author