Legislating Morality

A recurring issue in American political life is the role that religion plays in public law-making. While many believe that religious voices have been unjustly suppressed in public life and should be accorded a more prominent role in the making of public policy, others argue that religion (Christianity in particular) is already such an institutionalized part of American public life that religious minorities can sometimes be made to feel like outsiders.;In this book, Lucinda Peach sheds light on this discussion by proposing a pragmatic alternative: recognizing the value of liberal arguments about the importance of religious diversity, on the one hand, she gives equal weight to communitarian concerns about the centrality of religion to moral and political identity, on the other. Defending compromise, she proposes that lawmakers incorporate different viewpoints into the process of forging crucial legislative decisions. A feminist perspective informs the way in which the book addresses the general issue of how conflicts between religious identity and constitutional rights can be resolved in lawmaking.