Party of Religious Liberty Botches Debate on Religion and the Constitution
By Sarah Posner / December 16, 2015
Remember when the presidential election, or the Republican primary, at least, was going to be about religious liberty? About how Obergefell v. Hodges eviscerated the religious freedom of “Bible-believing Christians,” who would need the big, bad overreaching government’s protection from two women wanting their wedding photographed, or from two men ordering a gorgeous cake for a reception? Remember how Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz helped turn Kim Davis into a heroine of religious freedom? Remember when insurance coverage for birth control was the most ominous, most litigated, most talked about “religious liberty” issue in political conversation, and in the courts?
The Republican presidential field has forgotten all about how marriage equality is going to force them into intentional Benedictine communities, or how nuns and craft stores would have to pay “crippling” fines rather than violate their religious convictions. They’ve been blinded by another kind of fear.
Last night’s debate, which was focused on foreign policy, further revealed the Republican field’s selective use of both the First Amendment, and, in a brief and probably since-forgotten moment, the Bible.
Fear of Muslims, and a rejection of First Amendment protections for Islam, ran through both the undercard and main debate to varying degrees. In the undercard debate, three of the four candidates openly supported surveilling mosques, botching First Amendment 101 in the process. In former New York Governor George Pataki’s case, he botched the facts, too: he claimed that the New York Police Department had a “very active group, aggressively monitoring” Muslim communities, which “stopped and prevented dozens, and dozens of attacks in New York.” But the NYPD itself has admitted the program, since disbanded, produced no terrorism leads.
http://religiondispatches.org/party-of-religious-liberty-botches-debate-on-religion-and-the-constitution/
