The Catholic lobby is complaining (again), this time about a Louisiana Supreme Court decision challenging the special privilege it demands to refuse to cooperate with legitimate court procedures for discovery of the truth. A young... Read More

I’m not a fan of metaphor, because it can lead to confused thinking. So my title here doesn’t refer to some general failing on the part of religion but to specific cases of churches not... Read More

With much fanfare, President Obama signed an executive order on Monday to prohibit workplace discrimination against LGBTs, at least among federal contractors. When word first trickled out that the order would not have the same... Read More

Previously we looked at some unintended consequences of laws designed to promote religion in the workplace. This week considers a particularly problematic example of this situation. Various laws in various circumstances require people to be... Read More

Last week I looked at some of the financial aspects of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, noting how it will take money out of the pockets of those of us who are not religious... Read More

When Arabs burst out of Mecca and Medina in the seventh century to extend their rule from the Atlantic to the Indus, they devised an ingenious means of persuading conquered nations to “peacefully” convert to... Read More

Sociologist Robert Merton first popularized the concept of “The Law of Unintended Consequences” back in the 1930s—the idea that purposeful intervention in a complex system often creates unanticipated, and normally undesirable, outcomes. Nowhere is this... Read More