Molly Worthen, in the New York Times’ Campaign Stops blog, considers the undertones of recent conservative claims regarding the Obama administration’s purported disregard of religious freedom:
Over the course of American history, “religious freedom” has been a shape-shifter invoked just as often in the name of prejudice (in 19th-century Protestant campaigns against Catholic schools; in fundamentalist colleges’ racial discrimination a hundred years later) as on behalf of liberty. It is a code phrase alternately benign and sinister, much like that other clever cloak for bigotry, “states’ rights.” In the context of the 2012 race, the charge that Obama subverts religious freedom is a code meant to label the president as an impostor, a blasphemer of the American gospel who adheres to another religion entirely.
Continue reading here. For more on this theme, follow The Immanent Frame’s new discussion series on the politics of religious freedom, featuring inaugural essays by Peter Danchin, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood, and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan.
