US Agency Calls Religious Freedom a Form of Bigotry

Last updated on: October 14, 2016 at 9:40 am by Michael F. Bird

US Agency Calls Religious Freedom a Form of Bigotry 2016-10-14T09:40:35-04:00 Michael F. Bird

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Over at Relevant is a great article on Multi-Faith Leaders Ask Pres. Obama to Reject a Report That Calls Religious Freedom Discriminatory. It opens by saying: “Last month, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report on the topic of religious liberty called Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles With Civil Liberties. Recently, faith leaders including evangelicals Russell Moore and Leith Anderson asked President Barack Obama to reject the report‘s definition of religious freedom.”

Because of recent events in the USA and Australia, I’ve been researching this topic, so I’ve read the USCCR report on religious liberty and it is quite frankly one of the most disturbing things I’ve read by a US agency.

Sadly, we are now reaching the point where agencies of the US government are openly saying that religious freedom equates to bigotry and they are disparaging religious freedom as little more than a license to discriminate against minorities. The United States Commission on Civil Rights has argued that: “Religious exemptions to the protections of civil rights based upon classifications such as race, color, national origin, sex, disability status, sexual orientation, and gender identity, when they are permissible, significantly infringe upon these civil rights.”[1] In other words, religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws are a fundamental attack on people’s civil liberties. The chairman of the commission Martin R. Castro claimed that: “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance … This generation of Americans must stand up and speak out to ensure that religion never again be twisted to deny others the full promise of America.”[2] I know that sounds bad, but sadly it gets far worse.

The commission accepted and endorsed several submissions which had highly negative views of religious freedom and wished to curtail it as much as possible. Leslie Griffin of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Law School argued that “religious liberty under the First Amendment should not be protected if expressed in conduct rather than belief, and that religious institutions should be subject to the same nondiscrimination laws as everyone else.” Note this, you are free to believe whatever you heck you want, but if that belief is expressed in any form of behaviour that discriminates against another person for any reason, then you should be liable to prosecution. Here religious freedom is exclusively cerebral, it exists between your two ears, it only pertains to beliefs, and those beliefs do not have a right to be expressed in public, not among associations of the like-minded nor even in private institutions . On a more sinister note, Ayesha Khan of Americans United for Separation of Church and State stated that “throughout history, religious doctrines that were widely accepted at one time came to be deemed highly discriminatory, such as slavery, homosexuality bans, and unequal treatment of women, and that what is considered within the purview of religious autonomy at one time would likely change.” The commission affirmed that point and added that even “religions change accordingly” to fit with the times. Again, note what is implied. If cultures change their views on personal liberties over time, then they should also change their view of religious freedom to coincide with it. Don’t worry on how this might adversely affect religious freedom because most religions will follow suit. Of course, for those religions that refuse to get with the times, one seriously wonders what lies in store for them.[3]

The US Civil Rights Commission rendered a negative verdict on religious freedom as a threat to civil rights, it proposed severely limiting the protections of the First Amendment to personal beliefs and only applicable to ordained ministers, and it assumed that religions either will change or must change their beliefs and practices in accordance with social progressive values. If you read the document, you will not find a more vigorous attack on the US Constitution’s First Amendment nor will you encounter a more morally condescending attack on religion itself.

Peter Kirsanow’s lengthy and impassioned minority report within the commission unveils the secular fundamentalism behind his co-commissioners’s motivations. Kirsanow acknowledged that there is a tension between religious liberty and non-discrimination principles as it applies to sexual liberty. That tension can be conceptualized as a conflict between two legitimate rights – the right to fair treatment and the right to practice one’s religious beliefs – or as a question as to whether anti-discrimination exemptions for religion should even exist. His colleagues have chosen the latter. More importantly, Kirsanow recognized that the differences on this point are far from incidental disagreements of legal opinion. “The conflict goes deeper” he says, “it is a conflict between two worldviews, both held with the intensity generally associated with religious belief.” The conflict is between militant secularism and a Judeo-Christian worldview. He declares that the secularist project “requires purging the public square of religious symbols, denying the validity of public policy with religious origins, and ending long-standing public religious practices.” Kirsanow goes so far as to argue that “the effort to force traditional religious believers to bow to certain sexual mores is really an attempt to replace the old faith with the new. But if the old faith is destroyed, and with it the idea of human dignity, the adherents of the new faith may rue the day they did so. Secularists may believe that they are simply expanding the idea of human dignity to encompass various important facets of human behavior, but in so doing they are destroying the foundation of the idea and are unlikely to find a similarly compelling basis.” Kirsanow is quite damning of his colleagues for their arrogance and their efforts to infringe on religious liberties: “My colleagues do not even pretend to neutrality and instead simply declare that they are wiser than the accumulated wisdom of millennia of the world’s major faiths. It appears from the recommendations that they believe religious beliefs and practices that conflict with the sexual revolution should be cabined as much as possible. The entire point of having limited and enumerated constitutional powers and a Bill of Rights was to restrain the power of government and to protect inalienable rights regardless of changing fashions.” His final verdict on the report is scathing: “The findings and recommendations in this report should serve as an alarm to liberty-loving Americans … The fundamental problem with the approach embodied in the findings and recommendations is that it is in practice, if not intent, hostile to religion.” [4] Whoa, Kirsanow seriously dropped some knowledge that we should all take heed to.

I’ve currently writing a book on this topic, but if you want something to read in the meantime, I recommend Bruce Ashford’s list of 9 Books on Religious Liberty (And its Enemies)

——-

[1] Martin R. Castro et al. Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties. US Commission on Civil Rights., p. 25. http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/Peaceful-Coexistence-09-07-16.PDF. Accessed 5 October 2017.

[2] Castro, Peaceful Coexistence, p. 29.

[3] Peaceful Coexistence, pp. 21-22, 26.

[4] Peter Kirsanow, “Statement,” in Peaceful Coexistence, pp. 43-44, 46-47, 103, 108-9, 113.

Photo via pixabay.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

October 13, 2016

Michael Horton Reviews N.T. Wright's The Day the Revolution Began

Next Post

October 15, 2016 Mike Bird Interviews N.T. Wright for Christianity Today

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Bible Lands Blogosphere Book Review Calvinism Colleges & Universities Ecclesiology Emerging Adulthood Evangelicalism Foreign Affairs Gospel of John Greco-Roman World Humor Just War N. T. Wright Old Testament Resurrection Terrorism Theological Education Travel Uncategorized Writing

Select a Month September 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 January 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Psalm opens and closes with "Bless the Lord, O my soul"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Psalm 22 Psalm 1 Psalm 37 Psalm 103

Books by This Author Books by Mike Bird

See All Titles »