This is a very important concept. Some fundamentalists on the right seem to think "religious freedom" means the right to impose their own religion on their fellow citizens, even if they have to do it with legislation. It does not. Religious freedom means the government will not favor any religion over any other religion, regardless of what religion may be dominant in this country. It also means the government will not require any American to believe in a religion at all -- thus protecting the right to not be religious.
Americans have the right to believe or not believe in religion, any religion, but they do not have the right to use the government to force their particular religion on anyone else -- and that means government at any level (local, state, or federal).
How in the dark many folks are when t comes to religious freedom is usually revealed when they start talking about a religion OTHER than their own.
ReplyDeleteIslam usually works.
But try to explain to them that their religion and Islam need to LEGALLY be treated the same way, and they will flip out.
Just about all the "social issues" at the core of the GOP platform are religiously based. Without haranguing from the Vatican, for instance, how many Catholics would know what their position would be on marriage equality, women's rights in the priesthood, or even abortion?
ReplyDeleteDitto Baptists and Pentecostal-types, whose only concept of the national social contract, is what their firebrand preacher tells them to believe each Sunday morning.