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2012 Supreme Court Roundup

Students in my constitutional law course are usually surprised, and often skeptical, when I propose that the most important case they will study is not about abortion rights, the death penalty, or the status of Guantanamo Bay, and does not concern Ten Commandments monuments, Christmas displays, or . . . . Continue Reading »

Leaping Headfirst Into the Smith Trap

ichard John Neuhaus has joined the chorus of those singing a lament to the death of religious liberty (“Polygamy, Peyote, and the Public Peace,”October 1990). The cause of the choir’s mournful tune is the Supreme Court’s decision in the so-called peyote case, Employment Division v. . . . . Continue Reading »

Abortion Politics

A funny thing happened on the way to last November’s elections. Pundits who throughout the summer had billed the elections as the first post-Webster “referendum on abortion” increasingly argued, as fall rolled around, that abortion had “faded” as a decisive issue for voters. Some of . . . . Continue Reading »

Polygamy, Peyote, and the Public Peace

No one should be surprised that decisions of great constitutional moment are sometimes occasioned by cases that seem trivial or exotic. Those who are threatened by the majority sentiment of the moment appeal to the Constitution, although not always successfully. There was, for instance, the 1879 . . . . Continue Reading »

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