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Related: About this forumIslam, Equality, and Pocket Constitutions: How the DNC Did Religious Liberty Right
Khizr Khan brandishes his pocket Constitution at the Democratic National Convention, July 28, 2016. Alex Wong/Getty Images
JULY 29 2016 12:03 PM
By Mark Joseph Stern
Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.
Khizr Khan, a Muslim immigrant whose son was killed while serving in Iraq, brought the Democratic National Convention to tears and raucous applause on Thursday when he held up his pocket Constitution and admonished Donald Trump: Have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. Khans rebuke was, of course, a profoundly moving and very necessary rejoinder to Trumps rampant Islamophobia. But that powerful moment, as well as Khans entire address, also revealed that after years of surrendering the issue to the GOP, Democrats have finally learned how to talk about and present a progressive vision of religious liberty.
Indeed, that very phrasereligious libertyhas become so freighted with discriminatory overtones that I hesitate to use it. The fight for religious liberty has come to dominate the Republican Party in recent years, through a series of campaigns that aim to promote prejudiced Christians freedom over everybody elses. We saw conservative advocacy groups persuade the Supreme Court that for-profit corporations have a religious right to discriminate against female employees who wished to access contraception through their own health insurance. We saw Republicans endorse the idea that religious businesses should be able to refuse to serve same-sex couples. Weve even seen laws that, under the banner of religious freedom, give mental health counselors and medical doctors the right to refuse to treat gay and trans patients.
In a clever act of doublespeak, Republicans have branded these measures religious libertybut, as a federal judge recently pointed out, they really amount of Christian supremacy. (Or, more accurately, conservative Christian supremacy.) This attempt to legally elevate certain Christian beliefs above all others flatly contradicts the spirit and letter of the First Amendment, which was designed to protect religious belief and exercise while preventing the government from directly aiding religion or favoring certain creeds. Republicans religious liberty battle cry is also painfully hypocritical in light of the GOP standard-bearers repeated calls to forbid all Muslims from entering the United States. And a stunning number of Republicans who profess to support religious liberty also believe that the practice of Islam should be outlawed and the religion itself should be criminalized.
Khans address didnt just throw this hypocrisy into stark relief; it demonstrated exactly how Democrats can seize true religious liberty as a winning issue for progressives. Consider Khans precise phrasing. In this document, he said, holding up his pocket Constitution, look for the words liberty and equal protection of law. Liberty and equality: Two constitutional guarantees that are intertwined and interdependent, each building on the other, each a critical component of freedom in a democracy. Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Khan continued. Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America. You will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/07/29/khizr_khan_helped_democrats_take_back_religious_liberty.html
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