Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'United States Constitution'

High Court, high stakes: Replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It is extremely uncommon for me to read anything published by Glamour. In 2018, however, a first-person profile by Clara Spera caught my attention. Spera, a Harvard-trained attorney, shared with readers a personal portrait of her grandmother, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Continue Reading...

5 facts about voting and elections

Today, Americans will be electing the 44th President of the United States. To give you something to read while you stand in line at the polling places, here are five interesting facts about elections and voting: 1. Continue Reading...

The Great Awakening shaped the constitution—and religious freedom

How did religious freedom develop in America? It didn’t happen the way most of us were taught in school—whether in elementary school or law school. In fact, notes legal scholar Richard Garnett, the “standard story” about religious freedom in Early America is profoundly misleading: In my experience, this “standard story” is familiar to most Americans, whether or not they are historians or constitutional lawyers, though lawyers have probably been more exposed to and influenced by it than most. Continue Reading...

The First Amendment Defense Act

“The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to make same-sex marriage a constitutional right under the Fourteenth Amendment,” says Zack Pruitt in today’s Acton Commentary, “will generate huge conflicts—in some cases unforeseen—with the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.” Continue Reading...

How Justice Scalia Harmed Religious Liberty

Over the past hundred years few judges have been able to match the wit, wisdom, and intellectual rigor of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. During his thirty year career he has been an indefatigable champion of originalism (a principle of interpretation that views the Constitution’s meaning as fixed as of the time of enactment) and a vociferous critic of the slippery “living constitution” school of jurisprudence. Continue Reading...