Monday, September 23, 2024

A Nation Divided By Two Sets Of Laws.

Can you imagine a nation where people do not have to obey the law just by saying the magic words but they only work for some.

“Religious Freedom” is really the freedom to ignore the laws but if you are not a Christian it is discrimination! Can you imagine this happening to anyone else but LGBTQ+ people. Can you imagine a landlord saying “I don’t rent to Blacks!” but it is perfectly legal to say “I don’t rent to f*gs.” just by saying the magic words… “It is against my religious beliefs.”
Religious freedom, LGBTQ rights collide in lawsuit over Colorado’s universal preschool program
Catholic preschools seek exemption from state non-discrimination rules; case could reach U.S. Supreme Court
The Denver Post
By Ann Schimke
September 22, 2024


At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the door to greater public funding for private religious schools, a lower court ruling in Colorado could have big implications for the separation of church and state in education.

At the center of the case are two Catholic preschools in suburban Denver that want exemptions from state non-discrimination rules based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The parishes that run the preschools sued the state last year because they didn’t want to have to admit LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families if the preschools joined Colorado’s popular new state-funded preschool program.

After a trial in January, a federal judge largely ruled in the state’s favor in June. But the preschools are now appealing — and the case could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Colorado lawsuit is one of several similar cases unfolding across the country.

If the Catholic preschools win, it’s possible Colorado children could be shut out of some preschools because of their or their parents’ identities.
Here is a case where our tax money is being used and it is to discriminate against us! Our tax money should be used for all of the people not just a select few. First off why is tax money being given to a religious organizations and second why are they able to discriminate people in violation of the law.

It is as simple as Trump. Trump’s Supreme Court is packed with justices who put religion before the Constitution! Before Trump’s Court there was a test that was used to determine if the law violated the First Amendment, it was called the “Lemon Test” where…
The Supreme Court for nearly four decades used the three-pronged Lemon test to evaluate whether a law or governmental activity violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. However, by 2022, the court had largely abandoned the test as a way to measure compliance with the First Amendment’s prohibition on government “establishment of religion.”
But Trump’s court tossed that out!
 In 2022 in Kennedy v. Bremerton, a case involving a high school football coach’s group post-game prayers, the authoring Supreme Court justice, Justice Neil Gorsuch, ruled instead that the establishment clause “must be interpreted by ‘reference to historical practices and understandings.’ ” Gorsuch believed that the lower courts had created a “vice between the Establishment Clause on one side and the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses on the other.” He associated such conflict with the three-part Lemon test.
But now we have a court that has bent over backwards to recognize only one religion. Take Florida for an example a number of religions have said that the abortion ban interferes with their religious beliefs.
Religious Freedom Arguments Underpin Wave of Challenges to Abortion Bans
In lawsuits challenging state abortion bans, lawyers for abortion rights plaintiffs are employing religious liberty arguments the Christian right has used for decades.
The New York Times
By Pam Belluck
June 28, 2023


For years, conservative Christians have used the principle of religious freedom to prevail in legal battles on issues like contraceptive insurance mandates and pandemic restrictions. Now, abortion rights supporters are employing that argument to challenge one of the right’s most prized accomplishments: state bans on abortion.

In the year since Roe v. Wade was overturned, clergy and members of various religions, including Christian and Jewish denominations, have filed about 15 lawsuits in eight states, saying abortion bans and restrictions infringe on their faiths.

Many of those suing say that according to their religious beliefs, abortion should be allowed in at least some circumstances that the bans prohibit, and that the bans violate religious liberty guarantees and the separation of church and state. The suits, some seeking exemptions and others seeking to overturn the bans, often invoke state religious freedom restoration acts enacted and used by conservatives in some battles over social issues.

The lawsuits show “religious liberty doesn’t operate in one direction,” said Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at University of Texas at Austin.
Slate writes…
Which Religion Counts in America
A brief in a case out of Indiana shows exactly how fundamentalist Christian beliefs trump everything else in the courts these days.
By Dahlia Lithwick
March 09, 2023


When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, it overruled Roe v. Wade and allowed state legislatures to criminalize abortion care for the first time in half a century. What the court also did was hand off a fundamentally theological issue to elected state representatives. Around the country, states began to pass abortion bans that often featured explicitly religious claims about when human life begins. This led religious objectors to file lawsuits claiming that their own religious freedoms were being burdened by the states’ new laws.

In Missouri, for instance, religious leaders are challenging a draconian state ban that was passed as lawmakers claimed, variously, that “life begins at conception and that is built into our legislative findings,” and that they were motivated “from the Biblical side of it.” A related lawsuit, on different constitutional grounds, was filed in Indiana, with plaintiffs including a group named Hoosier Jews for Choice and five women who challenged the abortion law under the state’s religious freedom statute arguing that it burdens their own religious beliefs.
And it is not all Christian sects because some mainstream Christian do not prohibit abortions.

Are we going to become like Afghanistan? Or Iran? That is what the far right want. Don’t believe me? Read this in Project 2025. "Blueprint for Christian Nationalist regime change"

One Nation, One Set Of Laws For Everyone!

Vote Blue to keep religion out of government and out of our lives.
Our religion, our choice.

1 comment:

  1. So, the "Good Christians" of Colorado are going to ask a three year old child whether he or she has two daddies or two mommies or whether daddy acts like a mommy or mommy acts like a daddy? Why not ask if mommy or daddy is living with a partner outside of marriage? Have the kids bring mommy and daddy's marriage license for show-and-tell?

    The religious right is trying to force their religious beliefs into law. Many faiths to not ascribe to the belief that life begins at conception. Some say it is a "first breath" that a soul enters the human body. I have not seen a single discussion on what happens if the human clump of fertilized cells is naturally aborted; whether the woman knows or not. Many pregnancies to do not go to term. If life begins at conception, where is that soul going if it dies at four days or eight months? Of course, those who are trying to force their beliefs on others are really only "Pro-Birth" and not "Pro-Life." Have the child and he or she becomes your problem: "You shouldn't have gotten pregnant to begin with!" That's what the evangelicals I know say.

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