What I Have Been Saying

If you have been following my blog you know that I have been saying that the Supreme Court rulings on “religious freedom” is opening a huge can-of-worms.

An opinion article in the LA Time now is saying the same thing…

Op-Ed: Religious freedom in America is protected for some more than others
By Rachel S. Mikva, Cory, D. B. Walker and Reza Aslan
June 19, 2021


Claims of “religious liberty” are being used to justify discrimination — and that is not good for religious freedom or American democracy.

The Supreme Court sidestepped the issue this week with its narrowly tailored 9-0 decision in Fulton vs. Philadelphia. Still, the justices held that Philadelphia’s enforcement of anti-discrimination policies — telling Catholic Social Services that the agency needed to be willing to certify same-sex couples as foster parents in order to renew their contract for foster care — violated the 1st Amendment.

This isn’t the first time that “religious freedom” was used to discriminate, but then it was to get around the desegregation laws and the courts would have none of it, but now the Supreme Court has been packed with religious zealots thanks to McConnell and Trump.

It is reminiscent of the 1960s and 1970s, when religious liberty claims were used to defend schools that had been established primarily to circumvent federal laws against racial segregation. These claims were denied, but if religion is a good enough reason to discriminate based on sexual orientation, then why not race? How about religious difference? In 2019, Miracle Hill Ministries in South Carolina got a waiver to participate in federally funded foster care even though it turns away Jews, Muslims and others — working only with Christians.

Hopefully the Biden administration will reverse that exemption.

As scholars dedicated to studying the role of religion in politics and public life, we are profoundly troubled that religious freedom is increasingly invoked and interpreted as a kind of diplomatic immunity from the rule of law.

Will people be able to discriminate against blacks? After all the Bible does say about separation of the races and was used to justify segregation in the South. What about interracial marriages, could a landlord refuse to rent to an interracial couple or an unmarried mother?

Or will it only be aimed at us, the LGBTQ+ community and abortion, wouldn't that be against equal protection clause of the 14 ^th Amendment?

Also the courts have shown preference to Christian religions.

The problem is deepened because religious freedom is protected for some more than others. Religious liberty was not honored when the Indigenous community tried to protect their sacred lands at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Bears Ears

Bears Ears or Standing Rock. It was not protected when the third iteration of the “Muslim ban” passed constitutional muster. It is not protected when religious pacifists seek to withhold the portion of their taxes that funds the military.

Why are questions of sexuality and procreation the dominant issues that get affirmed as matters of religious liberty? Our traditions have much more to say about affirming the value and dignity of all life, caring for the environment, pursuing peace, fostering an inclusive society, welcoming the stranger and eliminating poverty. Where are these issues on the religious liberty agenda?

We are seeing a push by the Republican party to turn the country into autocratic theocracy based on evangelical Christians.

We are one nation under a common law but that is now being torn apart, it is good that the case centered around a technical problem, but like the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling was a technicality but the right looks at as a victory and they are doing the same with this ruling.

But equality under the law is also a constitutionally protected right. In the last dissent she wrote before her death, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned that the court was breaking from its long-standing principles in allowing “the religious beliefs of some to overwhelm the rights and interests of others who do not share those beliefs,” even when they are causing harm.

Are we still one nation under a common law?