At the Scoop, Courtney Bender analyzes the American media’s editorial treatment of the Swiss minaret ban:
The critiques mustered by American editorials can be placed in a larger political context where, we should recall, the U.S. State Department has taken on the role of the world’s watchdog for individuals’ and groups’ religious freedom. The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 requires the State Department to churn out yearly reports on the status of religious freedoms in every nation, and the bureaucracy at State dutifully complies. (Switzerland’s report for 2009 was published on October 29.)
Europeans and others chafe at the subtle diplomatic and cultural chauvinism engendered by these reports. Insofar as this “narrative” of America’s position as equal parts watchdog and exemplar of religious pluralism and democracy is embedded within our broader national conversation, it arguably dulls our sensitivities to commonalities in European and American responses to religious and national heterogeneity.
[…]
It is often noted that the State Department does not file a yearly report on the state of religious freedom in the U.S. While it might be politically expedient for the U.S. government to measure religious freedom by the standard of a mythic narrative, journalists need not share this compulsion.
Read the full post here.
Jessica Polebaum is a contributing editor for The Immanent Frame and a J.D. candidate at Georgetown University. A former program and editorial associate at the Social Science Research Council, she holds a B.A. in religion from Middlebury College, where her undergraduate work culminated in a senior honors thesis on ijtihad---a concept from classical Islamic law---and its use in modern reform movements. Upon graduating in 2008, she received the Ann and Edward Meyers Religion Prize for exceptional ability in the understanding, expression, and integration of ideas in the area of religious studies.
