Is Religion Compatible With Liberal Democracy?

by

Marc D. Stern

"Is Religion Compatible with Liberal Democracy?" is a revised version of a lecture presented by Marc D. Stern at Trinity College on March 17, 1999. Mr. Stern spent the week of March 15 at Trinity as the first Greenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life.  The annual fellowship has been made possible by a generous gift from Leonard E. Greenberg, Class of '48.

Co-director of the Commission on Law and Social Action of the American Jewish Congress, Mr. Stern is one of the country's foremost experts on the law of church and state.  A graduate of Yeshiva University and the Columbia University School of Law, he has been attorney with the Congress since 1977, conducting litigation, preparing amicus curiae briefs, drafting legislation, and giving public testimony on the full range of church-state issues.  He compiles an annual survey of the law governing religion and the public schools, is the author of articles on "Jews and Public Morality" and "Anti-Semitism and the Law," and served as principal drafter of the 1997 Presidential Directive, "Religion in the Federal Workplace."

For copies of "Is Religion Compatible with Liberal Democracy?" (prepared for publication by Anthony B. Smith), contact the Center.

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