ISBN Religious Freedom and Gay Rights ( Emerging Conflicts in the United States and Europe ) book English Hardcover 360 pages

In the United States and Europe an increasing emphasis on equality has pitted rights claims against each other raising profound philosophical moral legal and political questions about the meaning and reach of religious liberty. Nowhere has this conflict been more salient than in the debate between claims of religious freedom on one hand and equal rights claims made on the behalf of members of the lesbian gay bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community on the other. As new rights for LGBT individuals have expanded in liberal democracies across the West longstanding rights of religious freedom - such as the rights of religious communities to adhere to their fundamental teachings including protecting the rights of conscience; the rights of parents to impart their religious beliefs to their children; and the liberty to advance religiously-based moral arguments as a rationale for laws - have suffered a corresponding decline. Timothy Samuel Shah Thomas F. Farr and Jack Friedman's volume Religious Freedom and Gay Rights brings together some of the world's leading thinkers on religion morality politics and law to analyze the emerging tensions between religious freedom and gay rights in three key geographic regions: the United States the United Kingdom and continental Europe. What implications will expanding regimes of equality rights for LGBT individuals have on religious freedom in these regions? What are the legal and moral frameworks that govern tensions between gay rights and religious freedom? How are these tensions illustrated in particular legal political and policy controversies? And what is the proper way to balance new claims of equality against existing claims for freedom of religious groups and individuals? Religious Freedom and Gay Rights offers several explorations of these questions.