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Martha L. Minow, Religious Exemptions, Stating Culture: Foreword to Religious Accommodation in the Age of Civil Rights, 88 S. Cal. L. Rev. 453 (2015).


Abstract: “There is a war against religion!” “Exemptions on religious groups undermine civil rights!” “Pluralism and tolerance are in jeopardy!” “Freedom for some ends up trumping freedom and equality for others!” Whether any of these individual statements is true, the rising claims of catastrophe by opposing groups across the United States prompted an intense and engaging conference, “Religious Accommodation in the Age of Civil Rights,” held at Harvard Law School on April 3–5, 2014, sponsored by Harvard Law School, the Williams Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the University of Southern California Center for Law, History and Culture. Engaging and intense discussions among forty panelists and over 120 participants generated the articles presented in this issue as well as others filling special issues of two other journals. The focus on accommodations for religion reflects both increasing challenges to traditional denials of rights and protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals and religious objections to contraception and abortion. Clashes increase with political and legal advances in legal treatment of marriage equality for same-sex couples and expanding recognition of legal claims of businesses for freedom of speech and religion. Ongoing disagreements over the scope of existing and potential federal, state, and local anti-discrimination laws, health insurance requirements, and other general rules trigger political and social debates but also produce legal questions requiring answers.