If you read Supreme Court opinions on cases involving First Amendment religion issues, you're likely to encounter the ubiquitous phrase "sincerely held religious belief." The "sincerity test" of religious belief has become a cornerstone of US jurisprudence, determining what counts as legitimate grounds for First Amendment claims in the eyes of the law. In Sincerely Held, Charles McCrary provides an original account of how "sincerely held religious belief" became the primary standard for determining what legally counts as genuine religion. McCrary traces the interlocking histories of sincerity, religion, and secularism in the US, starting in the mid-nineteenth century. He then shows how, in the 1940s, as the courts expanded the concept of religious freedom, they incorporated the notion of sincerity as a key element in determining religious freedom protections. The legal sincerity test was part of a larger trend in which the category "religion" became largely individualized and correlated with "belief." This linking of religion and belief, with all its Protestant underpinnings, is a central concern of critical secularism studies. McCrary contributes to this conversation by revealing the history of how sincerity and sincerely held religious belief developed as technologies of secular governance, constraining the type of subject one has to be in order to receive protections from the state"--
At last someone has discovered one of the most fascinating lives of the 20th century. As a crusading journalist, John Reagan 'Tex' McCrary led the way from newspapering into radio and television. As a handsome adventurer, this well-connected Yalie romanced some of the world's most talented (and richest) women, winding up a globe-girdling love affair by marrying Jinx Falkenburg, then America's top model and later his partner on the air. As a brave Army Air Corps colonel in World War II, he took the first group of reporters into devastated Hiroshima, and was instrumental in the creation of an independent U.S. Air Force. As a political activist, he was a powerful influence in pulling General Eisenhower back from Paris to wrench the Republican presidential nomination from the hard right—even though his advocacy cost him his network job. As a pioneer publicist, Tex brought a social conscience to the builder of Levittown and sent a kid he was mentoring (me) to Moscow to set up the historic 'kitchen debate' between Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon. I could never get him to write his memoirs before he died; the active octogenarian stubbornly said 'I won't live my life with eyes on the rear-view mirror.' But Chuck Kelly, his longtime friend, interviewed him skillfully and often, and now we have an adventurer's eye-view of McCrary's little-known role in tempestuous times.—William Safire
In the South after the Civil War, segregation--and race itself--was based on the idea that interracial sex posed a biological threat to the white race. In this groundbreaking book, Charles Robinson examines how white southerners enforced antimiscegenation laws. His findings challenge conventional wisdom, documenting a pattern of selective prosecutions under which interracial domestic relationships were punished even more harshly than transient sexual encounters.
Book of the Damned, Lo!, Wild Talents, New Lands. Greatest compilation of data: flying saucers, strange disappearances, inexplicable data not recognized by science. Painstakingly documented.
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