%1

Jeffrey MacDonald reports on an interesting development: left-of-center religious groups invoking religious liberty much as right-of-center groups have in recent years. A church wants to install solar panels despite the objections of a local historic district commission; elsewhere, groups serving the homeless are looking to faith-based partners to protect their ability to do so. The story provides a lens on the classic questions about what counts as religious exercise and who decides.

Yet it’s a little odd that MacDonald’s framing takes as given this very recent use of the term “religious liberty”—more strategy than principle, an argument to advance a cause.

Twenty years ago this week, President Clinton signed a bill that replaced the federal government’s traditional cash welfare program with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, aka welfare-to-work.

Has this been a success? That depends on your criteria, on what it is you want a welfare program to do.

Right after college, in my first city neighborhood, there was this great restaurant I went to. The place was unusual in many ways, a labor of love by its eccentric proprietor. (Neal Pollack profiled it way back when.) But what impressed me most was the pricing structure: it was unlisted, unpredictable, and constantly changing. Not like some fancy place where the off-menu prix fixe is even grander than the standard one.

A friend notes, “now if we could get this type of article to be printed in men's magazines, too.” Indeed. Yet a male president’s byline on a Glamour exclusive makes a powerful statement before the main text even begins.

National Public Radio just ran a pair of features on the flavors of Christianity represented by the presidential and vice presidential nominees. An editor’s note affixed to both stories summarizes the theme: “Both major presidential candidates this year are Protestants… Beyond that, their faith profiles are very different.”