{"id":27121,"date":"2015-09-11T17:54:28","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T21:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/?p=27121"},"modified":"2015-09-11T17:57:52","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T21:57:52","slug":"september-11-2015-religious-freedom-versus-federal-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/09\/11\/september-11-2015-religious-freedom-versus-federal-law\/27121\/","title":{"rendered":" Religious Freedom Versus Rule of Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

The high-profile case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue a marriage license certificate to a same-sex couple, has raised questions about law, conscience, and religious liberty. Can exercising religious freedom trump obeying the law? Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Roger Severino, director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, discuss the Kentucky case with host Bob Abernethy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“There are extraordinary circumstances under which people may be able to break the law and claim higher authority, but being an elected official is not one of them,” says Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. But Roger Severino of the Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society disagrees. “The law actually requires religious accommodation where it\u2019s reasonable. It\u2019s part of our traditions, it\u2019s part of our history, and it\u2019s part of our law,” he says. More →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":27124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6569],"tags":[9920,6943,1379,2220],"class_list":["post-27121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videocast","tag-kentucky","tag-religious-freedom","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-separation-of-church-and-state","topics-law","topics-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nReligious Freedom Versus Rule of Law | September 11, 2015 | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The high-profile case of Kim Davis has raised many questions about the limits of exercising religious freedom.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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