In this Legal Spirits Short Take, Mattone Center Director Mark Movsesian discusses the recent controversy involving Congressman Dan Goldman and a Brooklyn coffee shop that reportedly said it would have refused him service because of his support for Israel. Was this illegal discrimination based on religion, or a refusal of service based on politics? What does this episode reveal about public accommodations law, political disagreement, and our penchant for turning ordinary commerce into a space for ideological conflict? Listen in!

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The Defense Department recently created a controversy by revising its list of religious affiliation codes for service members and failing to designate the LDS Church as Christian. After objections, DOD removed the Christian designation from the list altogether. In this Legal Spirits Short Take, Center Director Mark Movsesian explains how the episode reveals a deeper problem of liberalism in a religiously diverse society: government must frequently classify religion, but no classification can be completely neutral. Listen in!

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In this episode of Legal Spirits, I speak with Andrea Pin about his new book, Dignity in Judgment, and the role of human dignity in contemporary constitutional law. We explore competing understandings of dignity—a secular, autonomy-based view and a more communal conception influenced by religious traditions—and consider how courts choose between them. Along the way, we discuss why the secular view appears to dominate in practice and how judicial formation shapes the meaning of dignity in constitutional adjudication.

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