However, the West’s preferential treatment for religious toleration is not in step with changing times, Leiter argues. That turmoil gave way to greater acceptance of diverse religions, an important achievement of Western democracies. The origins of religious toleration can be traced back hundreds of years to the European wars of religion, a time when people were killed over religious differences, says Leiter. He began to consider the place of religion and toleration in society after noting how conservative Christians in the state sought to influence politics and public education. Leiter first became interested in the preferential treatment religion receives under the law as a professor at the University of Texas-Austin. That, it seems to me, is a pernicious and indefensible inequality in the existing legal regime.” Historical roots “My claim of conscience doesn’t count if it is not based in religion. “Namely, your claim of conscience counts if it is based in religion,” Leiter said. For example, he says a boy might be permitted to carry a dagger to school as part of his Sikh religion, but the same dagger would not be allowed if it were part of a family tradition. “The current status quo is predicated on a fundamental inequality,” Leiter said. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence, explores whether there are good reasons for the tendency to grant legal exemptions to religious claims of conscience while largely rejecting non-religious claims. The Western democratic practice of singling out religious liberty for special treatment under the law is not in sync with the world we live in today, argues University of Chicago Law School professor Brian Leiter in his new book, Why Tolerate Religion?Īll people, both religious and non-religious, maintain core beliefs about what they feel they absolutely must do- a category Leiter calls “claims of conscience.” In the book, Leiter, the Karl N.
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