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I am delighted to contribute this Essay to this collection of works celebrating Michael Perry’s lifetime achievements. From my first acquaintance with his work in the late 1980s, I have both admired and been profoundly challenged by it. One of his greatest and most enduring contributions is his foundational idea that every human life is sacred and, therefore, all are entitled to basic human rights. In his words, it is this “fundamental conviction [that is] at the heart of the morality of human rights.” What is the ultimate source for this “sacredness view,” upon which so much of human law depends? Perry is inherently skeptical about the capacity of secular reasoning and convictions to offer a coherent account of both human rights and the innate worth of human beings upon which they are founded. Rather, the premise that every human being is “sacred” or “inviolable” is inescapably religious. In other words, religious beliefs and secular objectives work together to create legal regimes of human rights. As a matter of personal understanding and conviction, I do not doubt there are both great truth and power in what he says. For me, questions about human worth and destiny involve inquiries that can easily transcend the limits of the human mind. In this Essay, rather than engaging with his work in a theoretical vein, I have chosen to engage it in an immediate and very critical context. Religion can create, ground, and support human rights. But what if it does not? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the bedrock principles of American property law is that all property owners and all property are protected equally. We do not believe--when it comes to compensation for loss--that poor owners are compensated rigidly and rich owners are not, or that property in private homes is protected rigidly and property in commercial or industrial structures is not. When it comes to compensation due to public or private fault, we believe in absolute equality. Equal treatment of property is at the heart of the liberal state and is the promise of American property law. This Essay challenges that bedrock idea. The ultimate inadequacy of finite resources limits government decisions about their distribution, including compensation of private owners for their loss under takings law and other theories. In fact, the idea that public payment for private loss is "resource neutral," particularly in the context of government fault-based claims, has always been a mythical one. When it comes to legal protection and rights to public compensation, ideas of equal protection for all kinds of property loss are neither currently implemented by American law, nor should they be. When loss occurs, and the adequacy of public resources fails, all property is not equal. It is not equal in origin, societal value, or deserved compensation. If there has been plausible deniability of this truth in the past, it will be shattered by the looming demands of global-warming catastrophe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]