What's with all the Religion Dispatches links?

A fair enough question. It started with Mark Juergensmeyer's essay of 24 July 2011 in which he asked the question, "Is Norway's Suspected Murderer Anders Breivik a Christian Terrorist?" (That, if memory serves, came from LongReads.) There's considerable resistance in some circles to calling him that, but Juergensmeyer's bottom line is, "If bin Laden is a Muslim terrorist, Breivik and McVeigh are surely Christian ones."

At the foot of the article were links to other articles, one of which was a provocatively titled piece, "There is No Religious Freedom: A Lesson from a 'Pastafarian' Stunt". I'm a fan -- or would that be an adherent? -- of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, so I had to read it.

It seems that Nico Alm, an Austrian who also happens to be a Pastafarian, wanted "to challenge the religious exemption to the regulations barring head coverings from official ID photographs" under Austrian law. Much to his surprise, he was issued a driver's license bearing a photo of him wearing a colander, the FSM church's approved headgear. To say that this calls Austria's laws on the subject into question is something of an understatement.

Austin Dacey's account of the incident does a nice job of explaining why religion-based exemptions to state laws are not simply a bad idea, but ultimately unnecessary. Rather than giving religious institutions and adherents special cut-out rights, a proper restraint in the exercise of state power affords all the protection religious institutions need (or deserve, in a nation that promises freedom of worship as the U.S. does). Dacey goes into greater detail on why religious freedom is not necessary in a piece coauthored by Colin Koproske from Dissent magazine, quoted in the blog "Secular Conscience".

If you've never heard of the Church of the FSM, it was established almost by accident as a challenge to one of Kansas' battles over teaching creationism in public schools. It elegantly and hilariously demolishes the logic, if that term can be used, behind creationist thinking. R'amen.