Thursday, November 19, 2015

ATTACKING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

It’s unfortunate that GOP presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz have failed to appear on the front steps of the Word of Life Christian Church in New Hartford, New York to rally the troops in defense of religious liberty, because nothing sparks a boost in the polls like playing the Christian martyr card and Huckabee and Cruz are maestri of that particular symphony. Plus, they could use the votes. Look at all the praise and adoration (and political capital) they garnered by showing up when Kim Davis was released from jail.

You’ll recall that Ms. Davis, the Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples on religious grounds. When a federal judge found her in contempt of court, Ms. Davis spent five days in jail for her defiance of the federal court’s order. Then, upon her release from prison, Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz were on hand to welcome her, with Huckabee hoisting Davis’ arms into the air as a hero in the fight for religious freedom and Cruz shoved aside by Huckabee’s aides who didn’t want Cruz to grab the spotlight. Surely, you must have seen the pictures. It was front-page news.

When Davis was originally hauled off to jail Ted Cruz lamented loudly on the campaign trail, “Today, for the first time ever, the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith. This is wrong! This is not America.” After her release, Mike Huckabee noted of Ms. Davis’s situation, “Her being in jail brought attention to something that many of us have warned about: the criminalization of Christianity.”

Huckabee and Cruz weren’t the only GOP presidential candidates to speak their mind on the subject. Senator Rand Paul, R-KY told CNN, “I think it’s absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberty.” Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. added, “As Americans, our Constitution guarantees religious freedom which means we should be able to live out our faith in our daily lives.” Former Pennsylvania Senator, Rick Santorum heaped praise on Kim Davis saying, “…I’m very proud of the fact that she stood up for those convictions…”

With all the campaign rhetoric about Kim Davis’ virtuous stance and the need to defend religious liberty from persecution, you’d think that every Republican candidate for president would be rushing to the steps of the Word of Life Christian Church to show their support for church members and religious liberty, but you’d be wrong. In fact, none of the candidates have dropped by or even mentioned that church in their stump speeches.

For those of you unfamiliar with the New Hartford Word of Life Christian Church, it’s the Connecticut church where several of its members were recently jailed by the government over their religious practice of imposing corporal punishment on a 19 year-old sinful member who refused to show adequate remorse and repentance for his sins. Of course, that young sinner died during the church ceremony as a result of the beating he received, and that got the local police up in arms, but the point here is that a group of Christians were exercising their religious beliefs and now the long arm of the law is bringing down its hammer upon them.

Where’s the justice in that? Where’s Mike Huckabee railing against the criminalization of Christianity? Where’s Ted Cruz lambasting the police for arresting Christians living according to their faith? Where’s Kim Davis raising her triumphant fist while claiming that God’s law trumps human law? Where’s Rand Paul pontificating that it’s absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious beliefs? Tell me, why haven’t any of the GOP presidential contenders come to the defense of a New Hartford group of devout Christians who interpret their Scripture as calling for conduct deemed contrary to man-made laws?

You can argue that comparing murder to denying marriage licenses to gay couples is like comparing apples to oranges, but when it comes to religious beliefs, you’ll find that one person’s abomination is another person’s sacred duty. Where do we as a society draw the line?

Remember Zacarias Moussaoui? He’s the Islamic terrorist convicted of criminal conspiracy for his role in the 9/11 airline attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. Moussaoui, who's currently serving a life sentence in a government prison in Colorado, followed an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islamic Scripture which, according to his particular religious belief, called for violent jihad against non-believing infidels. Why didn’t anybody of political consequence in this country come to the defense of this devout Islamic terrorist who interpreted his Scripture as calling for conduct deemed contrary to our man-made laws against murder?

The answer is simple: religious liberty in America was never meant to be a weapon to trample on the lives and rights of others. Freedom of religion does not afford individuals a license to act however they please so long as their acts or omissions are based upon a professed religious belief. The next time a politician says it does, tell them they’re full of shit.

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