The religious liberty case for Trump

[rug]

By Mark Silk | 5 hours ago

The best argument social conservatives have for supporting Donald Trump is the judicial one. Here’s how Rod Dreher put it a couple of days ago:

There is a chance that if elected president, he would defer to his advisers on picking judges, especially for SCOTUS, and give us judges that understand the vital importance of the First Amendment. There is no chance that Hillary Clinton will do this, in my view, and an overwhelming chance that she will appoint judges and advocate policies that drive orthodox Christians further out of the public square. She will consider it a virtue to bankrupt small businesses that resist the LGBT steamroller, and consider it a good deed to unmask and exile “bigots” wherever they are — and smash their institutions.

Indeed there’s a chance — I’d say a pretty good one — that Trump would nominate judges more to Dreher’s liking. But “the vital importance of the First Amendment” is a red herring. At issue is not an imminent threat to the Free Exercise Clause but special religious pleading.

The grandaddy of free exercise cases, Reynolds v. United States (1878), found that Mormons have no constitutional right to practice polygamy. “Laws are made for the government of actions,” the Court declared, “and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices.

That dictum was quoted approvingly by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in the most important recent free exercise case, Employment Division v. Smith (1990), which found the members of the Native American Church had no right to ingest peyote as a sacrament. Smith established the Scalia Rule: A free exercise claim cannot prevail against a neutral and generally applicable law — in this case, one against drug use.

http://religionnews.com/2016/08/04/the-religious-liberty-case-for-trumpthe-religious-liberty-panic/

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. It's NOT religious liberty, it's trying to preserve christian PRIVILEGE. . . . . . nt

[rug]

2. That's his conclusion.

So vote against her if your dominant priority is the agenda of contemporary social conservatism. Just don’t confuse that with religious liberty.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. The Evangelical Case for Voting for David Duke

Some of my good Christian friends in the state of Louisiana have told me they cannot vote in good conscience for David Duke in this fall’s senate election. As they consider the Senate field in Louisiana, they look around and dislike all their options so much that they tell me they simply cannot bring themselves to support the lesser evil in this contest and so they will be forced to write in a different third-party candidate or abstain entirely.

At first glance, I can understand their reservations. Duke is, after all, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He’s led an organization with a history of lynching, arson, racial intimidation, and no shortage of other violent crimes. In addition to his long-standing links with the Klan, Duke has also publicly aligned himself with a Holocaust denier and his ex-wife played a major role in the founding of Stormfront, a major white nationalist and neo-Nazi website that at one time had more than 50,000 members.
...
No, the truth is that I have credible reason to believe that Duke is a baby Christian. In fact, a friend of mine who pastors a large church in Houston, which is located quite close to Duke’s home state of Louisiana, has given me his personal assurance that Duke prayed the sinner’s prayer with him recently.
...
David Duke will be an invaluable ally on all these issues. We particularly need him in the Senate as the Senate plays a pivotal role in approving Supreme Court nominees made by the president. The latest polls suggest that the Democrats may well take not only the White House this fall, but also the Senate. If that happens, Hillary could easily appoint four Ruth Bader Ginsburg-style liberals to the Supreme Court. She could create a 6-3 or even 7-2 liberal majority on the court that will last for at least one generation and quite probably longer than that. The damage the courts could do during that time cannot even be imagined. By supporting Duke’s run for the Senate, we can increase the number of solid conservatives in the Senate opposing Hillary’s activist judicial appointments.

https://mereorthodoxy.com/evangelicals-endorsing-donald-trump/

See also:
A Born-Again Donald Trump? Believe It, Evangelical Leader Says

(and worth reading it all before commenting ...)