Well before the U.S.
Supreme Court (SCOTUS) announced the previously unknown constitutional “right”
to impose same-sex “marriage” on all 50-states, the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) was prepared for their next move.
For a couple of decades,
the ACLU has cited the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) as a
defense of religious liberty in a number of; but not anymore. The ACLU has decided that the unalienable
right to religious freedom embodied in the 1st Amendment must give way to newly
coined claims by newly empowered groups.
In a Washington Post column, ACLU Deputy Director
Louise Melling said this in reference to RFRA: “It’s time for Congress to amend
the RFRA so that it cannot be used as a defense for discrimination. Religious freedom will be undermined only if
we continue to tolerate and enable abuses in its name.” As a prime example of “abuses,” Ms. Melling
cited the SCOTUS’s decision last year in favor of Hobby Lobby’s refusal to
provide employees coverage for abortifacients, which she described misleadingly
as “contraception.” She warned that this
sort of liberty could proliferate: “Religiously affiliated nonprofit
organizations such as universities are taking the argument further,” she wrote.
“They invoke the RFRA to argue not only
that they should not have to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, but
also that they should not even have to notify the government that they refuse
to do so.”
The ACLU seems more
concerned than ever that conservative religious people might retain some rights
of conscience in the face of ever-increasing demands. Its website has a “Using Religion to
Discriminate” page that sights all sorts of religious freedom claims.
New York Times
columnist Mark Oppenheimer, writing in TIME,
cuts to the chase in his June 28 piece entitled, “Now’s the Time to End Tax
Exemptions for Religious Institutions.” In it he argues that, “Rather than try
to rescue tax-exempt status for organizations that dissent from settled public
policy on matters of race or sexuality, we need to take a more radical step. It’s time to abolish, or greatly diminish,
their tax-exempt statuses.”
Like many on the Left,
Mr. Oppenheimer sees religious tax exemptions not as a recognition that the state
has no authority over churches and church property, but as a favor
(“subsidizing”) that the state has extended. Viewed that way, it’s not a stretch to have
the government assert taxing power over ecclesiastical property.
As for “settled public
policy,” he means that the Court’s ruling is final, something that the Left
never accepts when they lose. For
example, the ACLU and others stepped up their legal attacks on the Boy Scouts
after the SCOTUS in 2000 upheld the group’s right to enforce their moral
standards. Whenever the pendulum swings
left, we’re told the law is “settled.” If
it swings right, that’s just an incitement to do more.
In the near future,
conservative religious business owners, academic institutions and any
individual who will not genuflect to the Left’s version of reality will face
subtle and outright discrimination.
Not missing a beat,
atheist activist Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF)
is now calling for the Pentagon to weed out conservative Christians from the
ranks. In a Daily Kos posting, he wrote that chaplains who teach biblical
marriage “don’t belong in the military. … At this stage, the only honorable
thing that these losers can do is to fold up their uniforms, turn in their
papers, and get the hell out of the American military chaplaincy. If they are unwilling or too cowardly to do
so, then the Department of Defense must expeditiously cleanse itself of the
intolerant filth that insists on lingering in the ranks of our armed forces.”
Given that this is what
passes for tolerance, it’s not surprising that the ACLU and others on the Left
want to render meaningless the free exercise of religion guarantee of the 1st
Amendment and any federal and state laws that fortify religious liberty.
Christians: Are you
prepared for battle? Are you ready to fight
for liberty in the land of the free and the home of the brave? The battle cry has sounded.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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