Why gay-marriage friends, foes need one another
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009
Two church-state encounters this month, in two very different parts of the country, are instructive reminders that in a deeply divided society winners are very unlikely to take all.
Investigating Medill 'Innocence Project' could chill students' reporting
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009
A scene in the 1987 movie "The Untouchables" shows Sean Connery as a Chicago beat cop instructing federal agent Kevin Costner on how to play tough in the Windy City. Connery finishes his bare-knuckles-to-handguns lesson with this flourish: "… and that's the Chicago Way!"
In public schools, get religion right before the fight
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009
In the unfortunate history of lawsuits over religion in schools, the Antonio Peck case ranks as one of the most wasteful, divisive and unnecessary of all time. At the heart of the dispute is a poster created by kindergartener Antonio to fulfill an assignment designed to show what he had learned about protecting the environment. Antonio depicted people picking up trash and recycling, but he also included a figure of a kneeling man that Antonio meant to be Jesus.
First Amendment doesn’t shield us from private infringements
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009
The concept that as citizens we are free to express ourselves as we see fit runs smack into the legal reality that private employers, associations, Internet companies and such aren’t restrained by First Amendment protections regarding religion, speech, press, assembly or petition.
Say what you want, hate-crimes bill protects free speech
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009
After years of heated debate, the Senate is poised this month to give final approval to legislation already passed by the House that expands federal hate-crimes statutes to include sexual orientation and gender identity. President Obama has promised to sign it into law.
‘Free press’ doesn’t mean ‘free news’
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009
There’s now an annual tug-of-war between news media and sports leagues and conferences over ownership of photographs, blogs and live game reports.
Cheerleading for Christ in public schools
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009
On Sept. 28 school officials in Catoosa County, Ga., reluctantly barred the cheerleaders from holding banners with Bible verses for the football team to burst through when they take the field—a ritual that has been performed religiously for at least six years.
Trying to define ‘journalist’ risks making free press less free
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009
You can’t have a law shielding journalists without defining who gets shielded.
In the culture wars, who speaks for God?
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009
Thanks to the First Amendment, any American is free to speak for God. But thanks also to the First Amendment, no American is free to use the engine of government to impose one version of God’s word on us all.
Americans still turn to traditional news media first
By GENE POLICINSKI - Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009
Most of us still depend on traditional news media—television, newspapers and radio—when it comes to learning of breaking news or finding out more about the big story, according to the just-released 2009 State of the First Amendment survey conducted by the First Amendment Center.
Bashing Islam: a dangerous sign of the times
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009
Students do have some free-speech rights in schools. But the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the authority of school officials to draw the line at student speech that they can reasonably forecast will cause a substantial disruption. It’s very likely that the Dove World T-shirt stating "Islam is of the Devil" crosses that line.
Military efforts to control press could make truth a casualty
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009
There was a dust-up recently over the press’s ability to report freely on U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, and the dust has barely settled.
Dueling bus ads advance free speech
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, Aug. 29, 2009
Earlier this month, transit-authority officials in Des Moines removed bus advertisements paid for by Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers after receiving calls from people offended by the message: “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.”
But now the controversial signs are back on the sides of 20 buses, thanks to a nudge from the American Civil Liberties Union.
A rapper, a blogger and ‘true threats’
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, Aug. 22, 2009
For a Florida rapper, the lyrics he wrote for the song “Kill Me A Cop” recently resulted in a two-year prison term. And a New Jersey blogger, who sometimes hosts an Internet radio talk show, faces federal and state charges in Connecticut and Illinois for several Web postings in June.
Revising history: What happens in Texas won’t stay in Texas
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Since Texas has an outsized influence on what goes into textbooks nationwide, the winners in a battle brewing over what's taught in that state's social studies classes could end up writing history for us all.
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