Cavanaugh on Blackford on Cavanaugh on Blackford

If you haven't already noticed it, this piece by William Cavanaugh completes the series that began here. I'm not answering it - partly because enough is enough (and there are other topics to talk about on the ABC portal site), but also because I just don't think it's very impressive. Cavanaugh seems a bit frustrated at his inability to get his point across, if anything, and he quite understandably encourages readers of the ABC site to read his book on the subject.

There's some interesting discussion in the thread, if you want to check it out.

I've replied implicitly, I suppose, in my piece at Talking Philosophy yesterday - there I discuss religion-based exemptions from the general law, addressing the same example that Cavanaugh raises near the end of his piece: the requirement that will fall on certain Catholic employers in the US to provide insurance policies that, in turn, provide for birth control. However, I didn't intend this piece as a reply to Cavanaugh in particular: it's a topical issue that provides a good example of how religious freedom and the secular state should operate (at least in my view that I develop in my own new book ... which I quite understandably, I think, encourage people to read).

Oh, and there's some more good stuff coming up from me on the ABC portal.