by Janine Giordano Drake
Religion in American History<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, Jon Stewart made the news with a pithy statement regarding the Catholic Church\u2019s rejection of financial support for medical care they deem inappropriate. He said, \u201cYou\u2019ve confused a war on your religion with not always getting what you want.\u201d The statement stirred me for days, as it might have been uttered at any time in American history against any religious leader with a fair degree of temporal power. Over and over, Americans have dealt with the question of where to draw the line between the freedoms of individuals and freedoms of religious institutions. To what extent should a civic dedication to human rights supercede the rights of religious institutions to their own fiefdoms of temporal and spiritual power?<\/p>\n
We can all think probably of a half dozen examples of this conflict within American history. We think of Southern Christian slaveholders\u2019 defense of their theology of paternalism. We think of Margaret Sanger\u2019s insistence that she spoke on behalf of Catholic women as much, or more, than the Bishops of New York.<\/p>\n