THE DUOPOLY WATCH | Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
With
a great flourish, the Dominionist
Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, (while
also clearly announcing, to his base in the Religious Right at least, his
candidacy for the 2020 Republican Presidential nomination) introduced his “First
Amendment Defense Act” into the new
Congress, the 115th. His stated purpose is to protect the
“freedom of religion” for persons who would like to prevent the Federal
government (and presumably, eventually, State and local governments as well)
from “retaliating against businesses or people who refuse service to lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals.”
Put differently, the bill states that “… the Federal Government shall not take any
discriminatory action against a person… with a religious belief or moral
conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and
one woman…” That is, his bill, (and a similar one was supported by
the incoming Vice-President Mike Pence when
he was Governor of Indiana) would allow any person to discriminate against any
other persons based on their sexual orientation, identity, or concept of what
“marriage” is. Sen. Cruz makes it clear that the protected,
allowable discrimination is one that is specifically based on the religious
belief of the discriminator.
Sen. Cruz and allies use a
First Amendment argument in support of their proposed legislation. Indeed,
the first clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”. . . Presumably,
Cruz and his allies, like Senator Mike
Lee of Utah, view having the unsanctionable ability to discriminate against
persons based on who they are as people and/or certain of their actions and
beliefs, that are neither criminal nor the subject of personal/civil
intentional tort law, is a “right” that is indeed protected by the First
Amendment. I presume that they would argue not that the persons so
protected would not be “establishing a religion” but would be simply “freely
exercising” their own religious beliefs and, in many cases, those of the church
to which they belong.
Well, let’s take a look at
that argument (and I do not know if they would be making it or another related
one, but if I agreed with them on this issue, it is surely the one I would be
making). First of all, what about the oft-quoted
statement by Thomas Jefferson that
the First Amendment establishes a “Wall of Separation between Church and
State?” Well actually, although that interpretation
is highly common and has been often
followed by the courts, when taken literally there is nothing in the clause
that establishes that principle. Indeed, the Religious Right often makes
this argument. (One contrast
in Constitutional interpretation and history, implication vs. clear statement,
is indeed the 2nd Amendment, which clearly begins
with referring to a “well-regulated militia” as its subject. But
somehow, in Scalia-time, that first half of the sentence has been hived off and
we are left with a “right” to totally unregulated gun
ownership, including, I suppose, tanks and artillery. But
that is a matter for another time.) And so, in opposing such Cruzist
legislation (as I obviously do), I don’t use the “Wall of Separation”
argument.
Rather I use the
“establishing of religion” argument. For in the Cruz-Pence-Dominionist
approach to this issue they clearly advocate that government should use its
power to protect the right of certain kinds of believers — to discriminate in
the use of public facilities, when such discrimination by, for example, “race”
or national origin would clearly be prohibited — as against the rights of other
kinds of believers and indeed, like myself, atheists.
It is not as if members of
the LGBTQ community are ciphers when it comes to belief. Many
members of these groups are quite religious and certainly share a belief in God
with the Cruz/Pence/Lee wing of Christianity. Their view of God, and
what God sanctions and doesn’t, is just a different one, one indeed, for
example, expressed these days by Pope Francis.
Click here
for the full article.
Source: The
Greanville Post
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