From nuns seeking exemptions from health care mandates to a baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, questions about religion and the Constitution are at the center of our national debate. Join us for a conversation with legal experts from differing perspectives, Elizabeth Clark, Robin Fretwell Wilson, Matt Sharp, and Tobias Barrington Wolff, as they explore what happens when religious liberty collides with anti-discrimination laws and regulations protecting LGBTQ and other minority groups.
This program is presented in partnership with Interfaith Philadelphia and as part of their year-long civil dialogue series, A Year of Civil Conversations.
Participants
- Elizabeth Clark is Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at The J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. In this position, Clark has taken part in drafting commentaries and legal analyses of pending legislation and developments affecting religious freedom and has written an amicus brief on international religious freedom issues for the U.S. Supreme Court. Clark has also testified before Congress on religious freedom issues. Clark previously served as an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Mayer, Brown & Platt, where she was a member of the Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation Group.
- Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Associate Dean for Public Engagement and the Roger and Stephany Joslin Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, where she directs the College of Law’s Family Law and Policy Program and the Epstein Health Law and Policy Program. Wilson is the author of 11 books and her scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, lower federal courts, and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington.
- Matt Sharp serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he directs the Center for Legislative Advocacy. Since joining ADF in 2010, Sharp has worked on important cases advancing religious freedom: for students desiring to share their faith; and, defending their privacy against efforts to require schools to open their locker rooms and restrooms to the opposite sex. He has won cases upholding the rights of students to form religious clubs, invite classmates to church, and even perform a religious song at a school talent show. Sharp has also testified before several state legislatures on religious liberty and physical privacy issues.
- Tobias Barrington Wolff is Jefferson B. Fordham Professor of Law and Deputy Dean of Alumni Engagement and Inclusion at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. He writes and teaches in the fields of civil procedure and complex litigation, the conflict of laws, constitutional law, and LGBT rights. He is co-author with Linda Silberman and Allan Stein of Civil Procedure: Theory and Practice, and has published numerous law review. Wolff has served as pro bono counsel in many civil rights cases seeking equal treatment under law for LGBT people.
- Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
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