Last updated on January 1st, 2021 at 05:08 pm
Many Americans hate the Islamic Republic of Iran because it is a theocracy, but they likely are unaware that America is now more similar to Iran than they want to believe.
The recent Supreme Court ruling putting tens-of-millions of Americans at risk of succumbing to a global pandemic is due to a group of Christians (Catholics) who have as little regard for American lives as Trump has for the U.S. Constitution. It is a travesty to be sure, but the current Catholic majority on the Court is only getting started and their next victims will be women and members of the LGBTQ community.
It has been a mystery to this former Christian minister that some so-called Christians rail against public health measures put in place to protect the lives of all Americans, including the faithful. One always hears Christians flaunt their “personal relationship” with their “personal Jesus,” and yet there is a fairly robust contingent that can’t have that “personal relationship” without a crowd to watch them. It is an obscenely ridiculous concept that they claim their religious liberty is being attacked if they can’t practice religion in a group setting. Even more obscene is that five Catholics on the Supreme Court agree; even though doing so endangers the lives of the faithful and the public alike.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
The issue brought before the High Court entailed a Catholic Diocese suit challenging New York’s prohibition on large gatherings solely implemented to protect the lives of New Yorkers, including the faithful. The ruling was an abomination because it was the first time the Supreme Court put the wishes of the faithful over the lives of other Americans, including the faithful. The decision can be summarized as telling the faithful that their need for what the Christian Bible labels “a showy display” of religiosity over the health, well-being, and lives of the public at large is constitutionally protected.
This bizarre and unconstitutional idea that a person’s religious liberty automatically exempts them from adhering to the law, or public health orders, is something that has been in the works for at least the past six years. The case, Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, centered around New York Governor Cuomo’s restriction on “house of worship” gatherings in the midst of a deadly global pandemic. A pandemic, by the way, that has claimed well over a quarter of a million American lives and counting.
Prior to the Supreme Court’s transformation to an entity more in line with Iran’s Supreme Council, the court held that “religious objectors could not seek exemptions from the law if granting them an exemption could “harm people who do not share their faith.”
In the United States v. Lee (1982) the court ruled that:
“When followers of a particular sect enter into an activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on others.”
The High Court’s religious conservatives began undoing that ruling with Burrell v. Hobby Lobby that allowed private businesses to use religious liberty to impose their beliefs on their employees. As noted by Ian Millhiser over at Vox, the High Court’s latest decision was broad enough that there will be “sweeping implications for any and all institutions seeking religious exemptions from the law;” whether they are businesses, individuals, or churches.
Now, one might be inclined to say let the faithful gather in really large groups and infect each other to their religious hearts’ content. However, those same faithful will go out in public and harm other innocent Americans who “do not share their faith” or need to show how holy they are. That is the real issue and yet the Catholics on the High Court concluded that the religious liberty of the faithful allows them to endanger other innocent Americans’ lives.
As America becomes less religious, the so-called minority making up the social conservative wing of the Republican movement has applauded the High Court’s recent machinations elevating the faithful to a dangerous position tantamount to the ruling elite. Most sane human beings see the religious supreme council posing as the Supreme Court as creating a powerful political movement that will impose its brand of religious liberty on laws regarding employee rights, health care, education, entertainment, and equal treatment of women and the LGBTQ community.
According to the president and CEO of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, Rachel Laser:
“What we are seeing today is this effort to turn religious freedom into religious privilege. Religious institutions and individuals are being given the right to wield religious freedom as a sword to harm others, and frankly to dial back social progress in light of our changing demographics and progress toward greater equality.”
Ms. Laser is absolutely correct: according to the majority on the High Court religious freedom guarantees the faithful the right to use their religious freedom as a weapon against other Americans whether they are women, members of the LBGTQ community, or innocent Americans attempting to avoid a deadly global pandemic.
Many Americans are ignorant of a movement afoot to create a society controlled by the Christian religion. The Dominionist movement’s primary goal is controlling all aspects of American society. And with a supreme council of religious conservatives setting the law of the land their goal is now within reach; it will not stop at dominating women and abridging the 14th Amendment rights of the LGBTQ community. For an idea of what that kind of society resembles all one has to do is watch or read The Handmaid’s Tale or consider what life is like living under theocracy in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
If the religious conservatives on the Supreme Court are willing to grant the faithful religious freedom to endanger other Americans’ lives during a deadly global pandemic, they will have no problem forcing Christian prayers in public schools, religious censorship of the entertainment industry, public hanging of gays, or mandating that all women submit to any man’s will.
Of course those atrocities are not remotely what the Founding Fathers intended with the religious clauses in the First Amendment, but that is precisely what the minority Christian fundamentalists demand as their religious liberty. Sadly, the religious majority on the Supreme Court is in full agreement that religious liberty means imposing religion, the Christian religion, on all Americans no matter how deadly the consequences.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
