Tag: religious freedom

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First Amendment rights ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

Biden Brazenness Against Religion

Joe Biden, Christians, Christianity, religion

April is the cruelest month, wrote T.S. Eliot, but he wasn’t referring to the Biden Administration’s ramped-​up war on Christianity.

Mid-​month, the administration barred Catholic priests of the Holy Name College Friary from providing “pastoral care” to servemembers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The government contract had been granted, instead, to Mack Global LLC, which the archdiocese characterizes as “a secular defense contracting firm that cannot fulfill the statement of work in the contract.”

Not convinced that this Daily Signal story amounts to “a war on Christianity”?

Well, try The Epoch Times. In “Christians Say Government Targets Them Because They Oppose Left-​Wing Agenda,” Kevin Stocklin lists a number of federal government policies that favor left-​wing politics over the social and political activism of Catholics and other Christians. 

Abortion activists, pro- and anti‑, do occasionally engage in what might plausibly be called “terrorist” activities, but the FBI appears avid in hounding pro-​life protesters, yet uninterested in doing any actual work to curb the string of “violent attacks, including assaults and firebombings, against pro-​life individuals and institutions.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R‑Ohio)’s “subpoena to the FBI earlier this month demanding information on its alleged program to surveil Catholics for ‘signs of radicalization,’” spurred Stocklin’s reporting about the government’s increasing conflict with Christianity.

Why see traditional Christians as enemies of the State? Because they are.

Potentially, at least.

In part, simply because those who worship God see a worshipful attitude towards the State as something akin to idolatry. And apparently vice versa. But sociologists such as Robert Nisbet regard religion as a countervailing power against ever-​growing government.

If you are looking for a jealous god, the modern total State fills the bill.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling judiciary

The Choice in School Choice

private school, students, religious

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that state programs which help parents pay for private schooling may not discriminate against parents who want to send their kids to a religious school.

The court relied on its 2020 ruling that state programs subsidizing private schooling “cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

The present case pertains to a Maine program. The court determined that “Maine’s ‘nonsectarian’ requirement for otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause.”

It adds that a state government’s interest in not establishing a religion “does not justify enactments that exclude some members of the community from an otherwise generally available public benefit because of their religious exercise.”

Maine’s tuition program is for families who live in regions without any secondary public school. Qualifying families can use the subsidy to pay for either public or private schooling in another part of the state. Before 1981, Maine had no problem with students going to religious schools under the program. In that year, the rule changed.

So-​called sectarian schools are, of course, often the major and sometimes the only private secondary-​school alternative to public schools in an area. According to the Council for American Private Education, 78 percent of all students who attend private schools in the U.S. attend schools that are religiously affiliated.

Proponents of keeping kids trapped in public schools are in an uproar over the court’s decision.

But it only stands to reason that school choice programs must permit choice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture international affairs

Which National Church?

Finland, religious freedom

Juhana Pohjola, writes Joy Pullmann in The Federalist, may be “the first in the post-​Soviet Union West to be brought up on criminal charges for preaching the Christian message as it has been established for thousands of years.”

While it may seem strange that Bishop Pohjola’s being prosecuted for saying Christian things — considering that he heads the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, and the Lutheran Church is the country’s state church — the truth is that Finland is majority nonbeliever, now, and the actual state religion might best be called Wokianity. 

That is why he’s being prosecuted.

And he’s not alone. 

Former Minister of the Interior and current Member of Parliament Päivi Räsänen also faces charges: “The medical doctor, mother of five, and grandmother of seven is accused of having engaged in ‘hate speech’ for publicly voicing her opinion on marriage and human sexuality in a 2004 pamphlet, for comments made on a 2019 radio show, and a tweet directed at her church leadership.” 

That last is a quotation from the ADF International, which describes itself as “a faith-​based legal advocacy organization that protects fundamental freedoms and promotes the inherent dignity of all people.” The tweet quoted a Bible verse.

At issue is protecting “government-​privileged identity groups,” in this case LGBTQ folks, from “centuries-​old Christian teachings about sex” that “incite hatred.” 

A sign of the times: Finland, which used to be very liberal, is now merely “progressive” — making the assault on Christian beliefs for being un-​woke completely unsurprising.

And worth noting here in America. For this sort of attack on free speech and freedom of religion is obviously what many on the left wish to implement.

It’s Wokianity versus Christianity … those with political powerful against the most basic rights of the First Amendment.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture

Commanding Controversy

Ten Commandments

Is “Thou shalt create controversy” one of politicians’ Ten Commandments? Is “Thou shalt pass a law to solve every problem” their eleventh?

Meet Arkansas Senate Bill 939, which would authorize placing a monument to the Ten Commandments on capitol grounds. It passed the state senate last week, 27 – 3, and is headed to a similar slam-​dunk in the House.

The Arkansas Democrat-​Gazette reports that, according to authors Sen. Jason Rapert (R‑Bigelow) and Rep. Kim Hammer (R‑Benton), the effort “should be seen as a way to honor the historic role the biblical text has had in U.S. and Arkansas history and not seen solely as religious.”

No public dollars are involved, say proponents — private money is to purchase the obelisk. Opponents, many testifying, counter that the upkeep will still tap taxpayer money.

Not to mention the certain and certainly expensive litigation over the constitutionality of the endeavor.

I’m not one to shy from a constitutional battle, having launched more than a few of my own. But, well, I think the Ten Commandments might best serve as more than a prop.

Let me offer an alternative that (a) could actually get real people to read the Ten Commandments, no doubt with varied but valuable educational result, and (b) won’t cost the State of Arkansas one thin dime in maintenance or legal fees.

Download a copy of the Ten Commandments here. Share with others.

Reading and talking about the Decalogue has to be far better than picking an expensive fight about it.

No law necessary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Ten Commandments

 

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First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture

Ninety-​Nine Percent Pure

Politics is dominated by pious, politic lies and half-​truths. Every nation has them, and Turkey’s are most impressive.

Turkey has been a vanguard, in the Muslim world, of “Westernizing” and “modernizing” tendencies. But it still has one foot in the deep past. One of its great pious half-​truths is that Turkey is “99 percent Muslim” yet possesses a “secular state” where “all religions are equal.”

With some religions more equal than others.

An Alevi spokesman, Izzettin Dogan, charges that the country “is actually a Sunni Islamic state.” There are 30 million Alevis in Turkey, according to the New York Times, and they are not alone in getting the short end of the stick in “secular Turkey”:

“The state collects taxes from all of us and spends billions on Sunni Islam alone, while millions of Alevis as well as Christians, Jews and other faiths don’t receive a penny,” Mr. Dogan said, referring to the $1.5 billion budget of the Religious Affairs Department. “What kind of secularism is that?”

Good question.

And it gets to the heart of one of the reasons I’m so happy to live in America. Our government may be a mess, but we still have some basic freedoms. We’ve long gotten over the ancient fixation on the union of religion and state.

In ancient empires, kings styled themselves as gods.

We know better. 

And we know better than to subsidize religion — or use it as a branch of the government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.