Overview

This book explores the legal bias in the United States against Paganism and other non-Christian religions. Despite being one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world, the U.S. legal system developed when the population was predominantly Christian. Built into the law is the tacit assumption that all religions and religious practices resemble Christianity. Using the Pagans as a case study, Barner-Barry shows how their experiences demonstrate that both the law affecting nondominant religions and the judiciary that interprets this law are significantly biased in favor of the dominant religion, Christianity. This creates legal problems, as well as problems of intolerance, for religions with significantly different practices. Special attention is given to a series of Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Freedom of Religion Clause in terms of neutrality and interpreting the Establishment Clause loosely and its impact on nondominant religions in the US.

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9781403964410

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Contemporary Paganism is a very good book. Carol Barner-Barry's thorough research, penetrating insights, and graceful writing combine to produce a work of first-rate scholarship. All told, this is a stunning and controversial indictment of religious extremists and a compliant, if not duplicitous, High Court. However, Barner-Barry's research and analysis solidly and squarely support the charge. She approaches the question of the relations between majority and minority religions by examining the treatment of Pagans at the hands of members of majoritarian American religions. But the lessons that she draws from this disgraceful treatment, as revealed in far too many tales of oppression and harassment, apply equally to all minority religions in America. Anyone interested in understanding the reality of minority religions in a majoritarian America should run, not walk, to the nearest bookstore (or computer terminal) and buy this book and read it. And in the gentle spirit of its author, ta

Author Information

Carol Barner-Barry is Professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

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