Liberty of Conscience
Subtitle: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: February 4, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780465051649
Subjects: Civil rights & citizenship; History; History - U.S; History: American; USA; Political Freedom & Security - Civil Rights; Religion, Politics & State; United States - General; Freedom of religion; United States
Description: The founders of the United States overcame religious intolerance in favor of a constitutional order dedicated to fair treatment for people's deeply held conscientious beliefs. This respect for religious difference, scholar Nussbaum writes, formed our democracy. Yet today there are signs that this legacy is misunderstood. The prominence of a particular type of Christianity in our public life suggests the unequal worth of citizens who hold different religious beliefs, or no beliefs. Others, meanwhile, seek to curtail the influence of religion in public life in a way that is itself unbalanced and unfair. Such partisan efforts, Nussbaum argues, violate the spirit of our Constitution. This is a historical and conceptual study of the American tradition of religious freedom. Weaving together political history, philosophical ideas, and key constitutional cases, it is a chronicle of an ideal of equality that has always been central to our history but is now in danger.--From publisher description.