I spoke again yesterday with Al Kresta of Ave Maria Radio and EWTN about Karabakh and the failure of the U.S. to live up to its rhetoric about preventing the ethnic cleansing of Armenian Christians. You can listen to the interview here:
The First Amendment and the Supreme Court
I was delighted to appear this week as a guest on Pastor Haig Kherlopian’s podcast to discuss the history of the First Amendment, recent Supreme Court decisions on church and state, and other matters. Listen in!
Podcast on Karabakh
Thanks to EWTN’s Kresta in the Afternoon for having me on again this week to discuss the situation in Karabakh, where Azerbaijan is starving 120,000 Armenian Christians in an ethnic-cleansing campaign. You can listen to the podcast here: https://player.fm/series/kresta-in-the-afternoon-3266582/military-blockade-leaves-thousands-of-armenian-christians-in-dire-straits-mark-movsesian21-august-2023.
Legal Spirits 052: SCOTUS Decides Groff and 303 Creative
In our traditional end-of-term wrap up, Marc and Mark discuss the Supreme Court’s decisions in two cases: Groff v. DeJoy, the Title VII religious accommodations case, and 303 Creative v. Elenis, the website designer case. Were these simple cases masquerading as complicated ones? Do they suggest the Court is rethinking its views on free speech, religious freedom, and anti-discrimination law? Listen in to find out!
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Legal Spirits 051: The Biden Administration’s Guidance on Prayer in Public Schools
In this episode, Marc and Mark offer some thoughts about the Biden Administration Department of Education’s guidance issued earlier this month (the first since 2020) on prayer and religious expression in public schools. The new guidance largely avoids much discussion of the newest Supreme Court decision on the matter, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, and does not mention the Court’s new text and tradition test at all. Marc and Mark offer some explanations (and entertain a few gentlemanly disagreements!) about just why that might be. Listen in!
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Legal Spirits 050: Groff v. DeJoy and Religious Accommodation in the Workplace
In this episode, Marc and Mark discuss the background and recent oral argument before the Supreme Court in Groff v. DeJoy, a case about religious accommodation in the workplace under Title VII. The case involves a postal worker who observes Sunday sabbath and who was disciplined by the United States Postal Service after a dispute between the parties arose concerning his accommodation from working on Sunday. We discuss the interpretation of the statutory language “undue hardship,” an old 1970s-era Supreme Court decision offering an unusual reading of that language, and the general and growing problem of religious accommodation in a pluralistic society that makes this case so controversial. Listen in!
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Legal Spirits 049: A Canticle for Leibowitz & After Virtue
In this podcast, Marc and Mark discuss some of the common themes in two books that we recently read and reflected on with our students in the Center’s Reading Society: Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz and Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. The themes include the nature and value of knowledge, the fragmentary quality of moral discourse today, and the question whether (law) teachers are, or should be, (more like) monks (than anything else). Listen in!
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Movsesian on Kresta on Tocqueville
I was happy to chat again last week with Al Kresta of Ave Maria Radio about the recent Wall Street Journal poll showing a decline in interest in community, country, and tolerance–and how the poll shows that Tocqueville was basically correct. A link to the interview is here.
Legal Spirits 048: The Rise of the Nones and American Law
Last month, the Center co-sponsored a panel, “The Rise of the Nones and American Law,” featuring Professors Steven Collis (University of Texas), Mark Movsesian (St. John’s) and Gregory Sisk (University of St. Thomas–Minnesota). The panel explored how the explosion in the numbers of the religiously unaffiliated in contemporary America might affect jurisprudence under the Religion Clauses. In this episode of Legal Spirits, the panelists recap their arguments and offer some new ones. What impact will the Nones have on Establishment and Free Exercise in 21st century America? Listen in!
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Legal Spirits Episode 047: “Christianity and Constitutionalism”
For our first podcast of 2023, we are delighted to welcome Professor Nicholas Aroney of the University of Queensland Law School, a distinguished constitutional law scholar who has co-edited (with Professor Ian Leigh) a new book just published by Oxford University Press: Christianity and Constitutionalism. Marc and Mark interview him about the book’s themes, scope, and arguments, including questions about the overarching relationship of Christianity and law, and about growing scholarly interest in the connection between law and theology (in Australia and elsewhere!). Listen in!
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