I t is easier to believe that God is in heaven and all’s right with the world than it is to imagine an irreverent politician questioning whether there is a God in heaven or any benefit to prayer. Even political theorists and commentators, right and left, are apt to shrink from criticizing religious belief or […]
Wendy Kaminer
Wendy Kaminer is a former senior correspondent for The American Prospect and a contributing editor at The Atlantic Monthly. She also serves on the national board of the American Civil Liberties Union.
A lawyer, social critic, and former Guggenheim Fellow, she writes about law, liberty, feminism, religion, and popular culture. Her latest book is Free for All: Defending Liberty in America Today. Other books she has written include Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety; True Love Waits: Essays and Criticism; It's All the Rage: Crime and Culture; I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help Fashions; and A Fearful Freedom: Women's Flight from Equality. Kaminer's articles and reviews have appeared in many other publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, and Newsweek, and her commentaries have aired on National Public Radio.
Before embarking on her writing career, Kaminer practiced law as a staff attorney in the New York Legal Aid Society and the New York City Mayor's Office.
Wendy Kaminer retains copyrights to all her articles.
Posted inFeatures
The Joy of Sects
N ow that the election has finally ended, politicians may be less preoccupied with declaring their allegiance to God, but efforts to involve Him in public policy show no sign of abating. Most Republicans and many Democrats have enthusiastically advocated federally funded, sectarian social service programs, which were promoted initially by the religious right. George […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
The Politics of Sanctimony
George W. Bush and God Himself are on notice: “The Democratic Party is going to take back God this time,” Gore operative Elaine Kamarck announced a few months ago as the vice president made his play for the Almighty. He declared his disdain for “hollow secularism,” his support for state funding of sectarian social service […]
Posted inArticle
Our Very Own Taliban
Jerry Falwell knows who caused the terrorist attack on America: the ACLU. “The ACLU’s got to take a lot of blame for this,” he declared on the 700 Club, because, he explained, the ACLU, abetted by the federal courts is responsible for “throwing God out of the public square (and) the public schools.” This is […]
Posted inFeatures
Delinquent Justice
@body no indent=[S”body”,”body”,”body”] hortly after the recent killing of six-year-old Kayla Rolland by her six-year-old classmate in a Michigan public school, President Clinton exhorted Congress to pass gun control measures that have been stalled in committee for the past eight months. Then he met with Kayla Rolland’s mother. It was a familiar political moment, and […]
Posted inFeatures
Divided We Stand
O bedient as always, in quest of good grades, Al Gore delivered the excessively gracious concession speech that pundits told him to deliver: Pledging his absolute support for George Bush, he urged us to set aside partisanship and embrace patriotism; echoing Bush, he urged us to stand united, not divided, and most of all encouraged […]
Posted inArticle
Sex and Money:
“Why Move On? This is too much fun,” the headline on the February 26th issue of The Weekly Standard proclaims. Above it runs a color photo of a bizarre quartet: Bill and Hillary Clinton arm in arm with Michael Jackson and Denise Rich, big jewelry and big smiles all around. (It’s almost as amusing as […]
Posted inArticle
State Of The Union:
Last night, President Clinton gave his final State of the Union address. Clinton was expected to use the speech to burnish his record for the history books while pumping the campaigns of both his vice president, Al Gore, and his wife, Hillary Clinton. The American Prospect asked the experts to give us their take on […]
Posted inFeatures
Bigots’ Rights
Should evangelical Christian groups at colleges and universities be permitted to discriminate against gay and lesbian students? Do the Boy Scouts have a constitutional right to exclude openly gay males? The first question is at the center of efforts by liberal colleges and universities to punish evangelical student groups for their illiberal views. The second […]
Posted inFeatures
Gay Rites
While civil libertarians celebrated the recent decision by the Vermont Supreme Court recognizing the rights of gay and lesbian couples to wed or enter domestic partnerships, Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer suggested that gay marriages were more immoral than murder. “I think what the Vermont Supreme Court did last week was in some ways worse […]
