Why the US does not, should not, have a national church

  ( Update: 6/26/2024 in a stand alone posting, too) I saw a posting saying that even though God and other Christian-related words do not appear in the Constitution, the signers of our historical documents used the term to date it: "in the year of our Lord." That is how date was expressed in those days. That was not a sign of those agreeing to permit a theocracy.  Now, please show me where the intent of the First Amendment was to establish a national religion or church, . You can't, and it was on purpose. Jefferson advocated the Age of Reason, when men had the freedom to come to their own conclusions. Madison because religion had caused centuries of bloody wars in Europe and England and did not want to repeat that. https://theconversation.com/how-jefferson-and-madisons... 

We would be much more unified as a country if religion would butt out of government and politics. Using the government to promote and evangelize your religion is extremely divisive. First amendment: no state religion...and our founders were so wise. I am a Christian, too, just not the  kind that Project 2025 promotes..

The GOP's embrace of Proect 2025, geared to go into practice in day one of a Trump presidency, has as its intent to establish a theocracy in America.  https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/project-2025-us-bishops-cant-stand-silently-political-sidelines#:~:t     From the piece: "Project 2025 operationalizes the tenets of white Christian nationalism on such issues as climate change, education, immigration, systemic racism, and abortion. Contrasting the scholars' policies with the bishops' positions on such high-profile concerns reveals what makes the Republican game plan so dangerous.)

The agreement of two adversaries on that issue is not the only reason, but experience as colonies showed the danger of having a national religion. There was already a great deal of diversity, and where a colony did attempt it, it was unwise and created problems, more often than not..  For example, Massachusetts was so puritan-dominated that a group led by Roger Williams split off and founded Rhode Island.   

So many wars had been fought over religion in England when our founders were contemplating what kind of a country this new land would be.  Some of our forefathers were protestant, and others were not.  When the country was first settled in the 1600s, it went through periods in some colonies that had established their own state religions.  We know the stories. Perhaps those who claim this was a Christian nation so, therefore, we should have a state religion has to face the fact that what was considered Christian in one colony was not the same church in another, and it is clear from the militancy today exhibited by the newly minted white Christian nationalists there is no room for those who are Christian, but not with the same interpretations of the scriptures or even with the same priories.  I have given this much thought and let me repeat some  excerpts from my prior blog postings.

How freedom of religion came to be in the Bill of Rights was because of the diversity of experiences in the original colonies. The pilgrims famously sought religious freedom to practice their own brand of Christianity, but it was freedom for them, not everyone. Some colonies like Massachusetts had established state religions with results we ought to remember, such as  Salem witch hunts, hanging or burning at the stake of heretics,  The Scarlet  Letter,  and Puritan overreach causing breakaway founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams for religious freedom. The success of the Virginia and Pennsylvania colonies not having a state-sponsored religion had been triumphant in keeping internal peace. Fresh in the founders' knowledge of English and European recent histories were centuries of war between protestants and Catholics, the root of many conflicts. 

Christian Nationalists are waiting in the wings for the second coming of Trump as they seek to get even more political power to make their theocracy become a reality. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/20/donald-trump-allies-christian-nationalism-00142086 They are already in positions of political power and are making plans to implement their movement by using the government to do their converting on their behalf.  They are already planning to ride on the skirts of MAGA into the White House which will give them access to all of the reins of power. Those part of the Christian Nationalist movement like Speaker Mike Johnson, were third in line to the presidency. advocates theology that has something in common with the Taliban of Afghanistan that sets medieval rules and uses government to enforce what they believe is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in all phases of citizens' lives, private or public,   MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: The GOP is becoming the American Taliban?

The most recent realization of the Christian Nationalist extremist to use government power to force the vast majority of women to bow down to their ideology is banning in-vitro fertilization. in the meantime, the state gets an F in infant and maternal mortality. https://www.marchofdimes.org/peristats/reports/alabama/report-card

So far as education is concerned, Alabama ranks near the bottom, number 45, as well, in the rankings of states. https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-educated-states/31075

Alabama also ranks as the 49th lowest state in per capita income.  https://www.statsamerica.org/sip/rank_list.aspx?rank_label=pcpi1

Alabama ranks in the top ten states depending upon federal funding as part of their state budgets. https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/

 The Alabama ban on invitro fertilization is a backdoor attempt to say life begins with an embryo, not at viability. It lays to groundwork for banning any pills taken early in the abortion process and even to ban contraception. " In all, fewer than 15 percent of fertilized eggs will result in a birth..” per the National Institues of Health. Frozen eggs are potential human beings but rarely become actual ones until it is implanted in a human and develop successfully. Jul 14, 2020 per the National Institute of Health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670474/#:~:text  The logic escapes me: ban the potential of birth by those who supposedly treasure life. The assumed  purpose however, is  to get the Trump-dominated Supreme Court to rule their way to pave the way government to control even more of reproduction rights 

From a November 2. 2023 blog posting:    I am grateful I do not live in a theocracy. When we became a nation with the adoption of the Constitution, the separation of church from state was at the top of the list of the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment to the Constitution clearly says the government cannot establish a religion, the foundation statement of the separation of church and state. ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ")  The Christian right has been active in narrowing the interpretation of the First Amendment, and the Christian nationalist movement has made it a goal to eliminate this separation altogether.  Even Jesus referenced separating loyalties from government and God on matters of taxation.: "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21 NASB). 

 

Christian nationalism Russian style. Evangelicals are persecuted

 The House Intelligence chair has accused a large chunk of the GOP and the House of repeating Russian propaganda.   Among those to whom he has been referring is Marjorie Taylor Greene. A recent example is that Greene claims Ukrainians are killing priests when it is just the opposite of what is happening.  Russians occupying the part of Ukraine they have conquered are killing and terrorizing evangelical churches and pastors, leaving only Russian Orthodox priests not prosecuted, per an in-depth report by PBS based on interviews. https://pbs.org/newshour/show/ukrainian-christian-groups-face-violent-crackdown-from-russian-forcesThousands of Ukrainian evangelicals have fled as Russian troops terrorize them.   Greene is duped or craven for attention or just plain ignorant; she is attempting to stop aid to Ukraine, and plenty of others in the GOP are equally duped. Greene is seriously lacking intelligence. Pun intended. Greene has no excuse because she has access to those on the intelligence committee have access to the truth.  The rest of those who have swallowed a similar line are finding it convenient to repeat what they have seen or heard on modern media that has no requirement to identify the source of such "reports." 

https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-applauds-russia-protecting-christianity-1888145

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/07/politics/mike-turner-russia-ukraine-propaganda-gop-cnntv/index.html

This following segment is also separately repeated in my blog post of  April 13, 2024

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Why the US does not, should not, have a national church

Here is why the US does not have a national church.   Dictatorships and religion are a toxic mix.

So many wars had been fought over religion in England when our founders were contemplating what kind of a country this new land would be.  Some of our forefathers were protestant, and others were not.  When the country was first settled in the 1600s, it went through periods in some colonies that had established their own state religions.  We know the stories. Perhaps those who claim this was a Christian nation so, therefore, we should have a state religion has to face the fact that what was considered Christian in one colony was not the same church in another, and it is clear from the militancy today exhibited by the newly minted white Christian nationalists there is no room for those who are Christian, but not with the same interpretations of the scriptures or even with the same priories.  I have given this much thought. Let me repeat some excerpts from my prior blog postings.

How freedom of religion came to be in the Bill of Rights was because of the diversity of experiences in the original colonies. The pilgrims famously sought religious freedom to practice their own brand of Christianity, but it was freedom for them, not everyone. Some colonies like Massachusetts had established state religions with results we ought to remember, such as  Salem witch hunts, hanging or burning at the stake of heretics,  The Scarlet  Letter,  and Puritan overreach causing breakaway founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams for religious freedom. The success of the Virginia and Pennsylvania colonies not having a state-sponsored religion had been triumphant in keeping internal peace. Fresh in the founders' knowledge of English and European recent histories were centuries of war between protestants and Catholics, the root of many conflicts. 

Christian Nationalists are waiting in the wings for the second coming of Trump as they seek to get even more political power to make their theocracy become a reality. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/20/donald-trump-allies-christian-nationalism-00142086 They are already in positions of political power and are making plans to implement their movement by using the government to do their converting on their behalf.  They are already planning to ride on the skirts of MAGA into the White House which will give them access to all of the reins of power. Those part of the Christian Nationalist movement like Speaker Mike Johnson, were third in line to the presidency. advocates theology that has something in common with the Taliban of Afghanistan that sets medieval rules and uses government to enforce what they believe is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in all phases of citizens' lives, private or public,   MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: The GOP is becoming the American Taliban?

The most recent realization of the Christian Nationalist extremist to use government power to force the vast majority of women to bow down to their ideology is banning in-vitro fertilization. in the meantime, the state gets an F in infant and maternal mortality. https://www.marchofdimes.org/peristats/reports/alabama/report-card

So far as education is concerned, Alabama ranks near the bottom, number 45, as well, in the rankings of states. https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-educated-states/31075

Alabama also ranks as the 49th lowest state in per capita income.  https://www.statsamerica.org/sip/rank_list.aspx?rank_label=pcpi1

Alabama ranks in the top ten states depending upon federal funding as part of their state budgets. https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/

 The Alabama ban on invitro fertilization is a backdoor attempt to say life begins with an embryo, not at viability. It lays to groundwork for banning any pills taken early in the abortion process and even to ban contraception. " In all, fewer than 15 percent of fertilized eggs will result in a birth..” per the National Institues of Health. Frozen eggs are potential human beings but rarely become actual ones until it is implanted in a human and develop successfully. Jul 14, 2020 per the National Institute of Health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670474/#:~:text  The logic escapes me: ban the potential of birth by those who supposedly treasure life. The assumed  purpose however  is  to get the Trump dominated Supreme Court to rule their way to pave the way government to control even more of reproduction rights 

From a November 2. 2023 blog posting:    I am grateful I do not live in a theocracy. When we became a nation with the adoption of the Constitution, the separation of church from state was at the top of the list of the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment to the Constitution clearly says the government cannot establish a religion, the foundation statement of the separation of church and state. ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ")  The Christian right has been active in narrowing the interpretation of the First Amendment, and the Christian nationalist movement has made it a goal to eliminate this separation altogether.  Even Jesus referenced separating loyalties from government and God on matters of taxation.: "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21 NASB). 

 How freedom of religion came to be in the Bill of Rights was because of the diversity of experiences in the original colonies. The pilgrims famously sought religious freedom to practice their own brand of Christianity, but it was freedom for them, not everyone. Some colonies like Massachusetts had established state religions with results we ought to remember, such as  Salem witch hunts, hanging or burning at the stake of heretics,  The Scarlet  Letter,  and Puritan overreach causing breakaway founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams for religious freedom. The success of the Virginia and Pennsylvania colonies not having a state-sponsored religion had been triumphant in keeping internal peace. Fresh in the founders' knowledge of English and European recent histories were centuries of war between protestants and Catholics, the root of many conflicts. 

Once again Colorado provides fodder for anti gay Supreme Court decisions

 https://www.politico.com/.../scotus-lgbtq-gay-rights...Colorado is once again the test case on whether a private company serving the public can discriminate and refuse service based on a religious belief that disapproves of LGBTQ people. Our state has been in this situation before regarding a cake maker who got success from this theocratic-inclined Supreme Court's religious conservatives. Supreme Court rules for Colorado baker in same-sex wedding cake case | CNN Politics This recent case brought by a business who wants to deny a printing service to LGBTQs is different because it challenges a Colorado anti-gay discrimination law. Thd plaintiff's contention is that she is an artist offering e commerce printing and her artistic freedoms are being infringed. It is an issue that is a thorny one with consequences reaching far beyond anti-gay bigotry to the rights of anti-non evangelically subscribed persons. We saw it in the majority of the newly comprised evangelical majority court overturning Roe v Wade. Will this lead to any more successful attempts to approve discrimination against those evangelicals who disapprove on theological grounds? Targets could include Muslims, Jews, atheists, and, in the case of evangelicals, also promoting white nationalism, black or brown people? The precedent of another court decision supporting the right for private businesses serving the public to discriminate against fellow citizens based upon religious beliefs will have unintended consequences, losses in their adherent candidates in elections as happened in 2022, Congress passing legislation (as it did in upholding gay and interracial marriages as a federal right), and it will give impetus to the attempts to enlarge a Supreme Court that is seen out of step with 60 to 70% of the American views on specific public policy issues, such as a women's right to choose and marriage equality. Court decisions appear to be made that are not based on the interpretation of the rule of law but on the religious beliefs and biases of the majority of the Justices. What becomes clear is that the separation of church and state and the Constitution forbids the establishment of a state religion. This principle established in the first amendment comes into conflict with an attempt by evangelicals to use the government to force others to adhere to their most ultra-conservative religious beliefs. They even support the use of police forces and the application of law to treat non-conformers as criminals (as is embedded in many anti-roe v wade extreme laws in many states the Supreme Court decision just enabled).

I have no problem with faith leaders extolling their beliefs or with their followers or converting others to adhere to their belief systems in their personal actions. However, forcing others who are in the majority and holding a differing opinion to comply by using governmental and political powers is not supporting American democracy but supporting a theocracy. I laud the action of the Mormon Church to recognize the principle that they do not approve of same-sex marriage as a religious doctrine, but they acknowledge that others have a right to believe and act otherwise in civil life. Mormon church voices support for same-sex marriage law | AP NewsThat is preserving the freedom of religion and civil rights, both. It also shows the confidence of a religious institution in its ability to succeed without having laws and police to act of morality police spread compliance with faith on its behalf.

I had an interesting e exchange with a close friend from another country regarding the civil rights of minorities. She is from a country in Europe where 90 percent of the population subscribes to Catholicism or some form of Christianity, and racial minorities are less than 10% of the population. Many countries in Europe and especially in the Balkans, have had bloody wars to eliminate ethnic a religious minorities with whom they disagree. Those political forces at work are rooted in centuries past. In that case, should the civil rights of those minorities be protected, and should the majority have the responsibility to do so? These countries do not have a multi-cultural, multi-religious population or a secular-based constitution like the US. For the sake of civil peace, the value of honoring civil and human rights should be above and beyond ethical and ideological reasons. Until now, human rights have been the principle that the US has led the world by providing an example of attempting to become a more perfect union. Until now, that has raised the issue of human rights as a worthy value around the world. Whether we continue despite the standard of supporting improving civil and human rights in our country in spite of our failures and victories is

under attack from evangelical theocrats. Protection of a minority's civil rights should not mean the minority has police and legal power in government to suppress others' civil and human rights, but that religious minorities and majorities have the same rights to peacefully protest freedom to preach, speak, convert, and organize.

The irony or the intention of these LGBTQ rights attacks is that Colorado is the hotbed of these challenges to whether religious adherents can discriminate against those they disapprove in their private business because of religious reasons.

Colorado has been at the forefront of acceptance of LGBTQ rights. Our governor, who just won a landslide re-election, is the only openly gay governor in the US. In addition, he is married and a parent in a same-sex marriage which is not only recognized as a protected right in Colorado but now, due to recent Congressional action, will have federal legal standing.

Update 12//7/22

The gay haters are getting organized in Colorado to bring their intolerance to Colorado public schools. School board members, be warned and ready. Colorado is not fertile ground, unlike southern states. Voters here have your backs.

A New Conservative Group Uses Anti-LGBTQ Sentiment to Attack Colorado Public Schools (coloradotimesrecorder.com)

Thank the Pilgrims who began America’s quest for religious freedom updated November 27, 2020

A version of this was publlished in the Sky Hi News, 11/20-21/2018

https://www.skyhinews.com/news/opinion/opinion-muftic-thank-the-pilgrims-who-began-americas-quest-for-religious-freedom/

Summary:

The Pilgrims got the ball rolling but it was only the beginning. They saw freedom of religion freedom from a government run religion that persecuted them. It was not freedom for others...but after the colonies provided a rocky start of hanging heretics and hunting witches, the Constitution gave all of us freedom of religion. Application of that First Amendment is still a work in progress.

________________________________________________________________________________
This Thanksgiving we should give our thanks to the Pilgrims who have become an icon of what made the New World so unique in the civilizations that preceded them.. They left England and the old world to seek freedom to practice their own religion, free from a government backed state religion that oppressed them.  It was a beginning.  There was a rocky road ahead to laws guaranteeing religious freedom for everyone, not just one group.

 Some colonies adopted laws with limited forms of freedom of religion while others established state sponsored religions, hung heretics, and launched witch hunts.  Pennsylvania and Virginia   had enacted their own laws effectively protecting freedom of religion. The Constitution authors adopted those concepts in the First Amendment, ““Congress shalll make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Congress  later passed  civil rights and hate crimes legislation that protected religious practitioners and punished those who interfered with their practice.

So, disconcerting in 2018 is that many seem to have forgotten the lessons leaned from experience, traditions, and history. So heartening in the 2018 midterms is that many more Americans rejected an Oval Office leadership condoning and even promoting hate and fear of “others”, including Donald Trump's attempted immigration ban of anyone who was a Muslim, .

In 2016 this country had given the reins of power to Donald Trump whose soaring oratory appealed to the worst of human nature. He set the example. It was alright to be uncivil, no longer to be politically correct, to denigrate and disrespect’ others”, especially people of color and women, and to express such feelings publicly. His inflammatory words have continued in rallies and tweets to this day.

 While protected by the Constitution, words of hate have deadly consequences. That was brought home shortly before the 2018 midterms by the Pittsburgh Synagogue massacre. While Donald Trump did not target his hateful words toward the Jewish community, he tolerated and promoted intolerance. Our President opined about the neo-Nazi demonstrators in Charlottesville in 2017 that there some were “fine people” among them. The tiki torch bearing marchers shouted anti-Semitic slogans in German while raising arms in the Nazi salute.  

 An atmosphere of permissive hatred does not confine itself to specific targets.  It is infectious and even if originally unintended, it can spread to harm other targets, including religious ones. In 2017, the year after the election of Trump, the FBI reported a 37% spike in anti-Jewish hate crimes over 2016, and the Anti-Defamation League found the number of anti-Semitic incidents, mostly vandalism, was nearly 60 percent higher in 2017 than 2016, the largest single-year increase on record.

 Alt- right conspiracy theorists and Trump friendly media inspired the Pittsburgh synagogue killer. The shooter posted on his social media that a Jewish immigration group was bringing in immigrants to kill “his people”. Reviving references to the international Jewish conspiracy theories, other alt right proponents claimed a wealthy liberal Jewish-American-immigrant philanthropist, George Soros, was funding the “caravans” of central Americans storming our southern border. Numerous fact checkers found that false. Others before had claimed Soros paid “mobs” of women protesting the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Fact checkers: Soros paid none of the demonstrators. Last week In Baltimore, attendees of the performance of Fiddler on the Roof, the musical about Russian persecution of Jews, were still on edge from the mass killing in Pittsburgh. They panicked when a man in the audience shouted, “Heil Hitler, Heil Trump”, fearing it signaled another anti-Semitic mass murder attack. Fortunately, no one was hurt running to the exits. The man apologized later, said he was trying to compare Trump to Hitler but said it the wrong way, and he had been drinking before the performance and claimed protection of free speech. Note: The Supreme Court ruled many years ago shouting fire in a crowded theater is not protected speech. (Schenck v United States: Oliver Wendell Holmes crowded theater reference)
________________________________________________________________________________2018 rulings by the Supreme Court  concerning  freedom or religion set no precedents that altered the underlining intent of the First Amendment or related laws.

The “muslim ban”, halting practitioners of one of the world’s greatest religions from entering the US simply because of their religious affiliation, was rejected by the courts, requiring a total rewrite of rules to comply by those facing extreme vetting to enter the US, now based on selected countries that harbor terrorists and not all had a Muslim majority . It was even retitled as a "travel ban"
 https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/26/supreme-court-rules-in-trump-muslim-travel-ban-case.html

If the tilting of the Supreme Court to the far right indicates that henceforth "religious freedom" means those who open the doors to the public can now discriminate against doing business with those of whom their religion disapproves, the answer should be nationwide and local boycotts of merchants who "exercise their religious freedom" to violate the rights of others. Nothing like causing them to lose the almighty buck to make a point. For those who oppose discrimination against any group, and especially the LGBTQ community and their supporters, it is in their right to use their freedoms to inform the community and to support those who are friendly to all and welcome their business. There are many more who do not discriminate than the narrow-minded holier than thou intolerant who do.

POLITICO.COM

Major shift at Supreme Court on Covid-19 orders

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to bar New York state from reimposing

The Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of a cakemaker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple because it violated his religious beliefs...however, the ruling set no precedent because it based it on the specific  hostility of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/masterpiece-colorado-gay-marriage-cake-supreme-court/index.html
Kim Clark, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple because of her religious beliefs, spent jail time over it in 2015 and was defeated in her attempt to be re-elected in 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/26/supreme-court-rules-in-trump-muslim-travel-ban-case.html

A number of Evangelical Christian ministers have recently proclaimed that the US is a "Christian nation".  It is not a state one per the Constitution, nor is the Evangelical brand of Christianity (full disclosure..I am a Mainstream  Protestant Christian) even the majority of the population.  Per a recent Pew Research study, Evangelicals are 25% of the population.  http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

Evangelicals have had an impact, though, in exemptions of  employers providing ACA coverage of reproductive rights based on religious beliefs, first in the Obama administration and more so   under the Trump administration. The battle yet to be fought is over further proposed  restrictions on  birth control  insurance accessibility coverage. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/fact-sheet-religious-exemptions-and-accommodations-for-coverage.pdf     https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/17/us/politics/trump-birth-control.html
Roe v Wade will also face challenges in the very conservative tilt in the Supreme Court    As a public policy regardless of religious affiliation, 71% of Americans polled oppose overturning Roe v Wade, https://www.wsj.com/articles/record-71-of-voters-oppose-overturning-roe-v-wade-1532379600
and 72% support birth control as basic health issue    https://powertodecide.org/about-us/newsroom/new-polling-shows-strong-support-for-birth-control-basic-part-womens-health-care
The backlash to religious restrictions on reproductive rights was palapable in 2018. The womens' marches and demonstrations against  confirmation of pro life anti birth control Justice Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the doubling of the women gender gap to 19% of the voters were certainly contributors to the Democrats turning the House blue.

Right wing attempts to get around the separation of church and state issue in the funding of education have not gotten far. Once again Colorado was the focus when the Douglas County School Board thought issuing vouchers to students to attend any school of their choice, including a faith based school, was rebuffed by the Colorado Supreme Court. https://www.denverpost.com/2015/06/29/colorado-supreme-court-rejects-douglas-county-voucher-program/   Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump's secretary of education has long been a supporter of tax payer money funding faith based schools through vouchers , and has set about issuing executive orders to chip away at the regulations forbidding public funds for religious schools. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/us/politics/betsy-devos-religious-christian-education-federal-aid.html

 Following US right wing efforts to alter the protection of freedom of religion,   in Europe and South America forces desiring to persecute and discriminate against  religious  minorities are raising their ugly heads. In Brazil, a fascist government was just elected, vowing to turn that country comprised of centuries of immigrants and native population, into a Christian nation.  In Europe a long list of countries electing very right wing, anti- Muslim immigrant governments are being elected to political leadership. http://www.pewresearch.org/topics/restrictions-on-religion/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion#United_States

https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/anti-semitic-incidents-surged-nearly-60-in-2017-according-to-new-adl-report

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-ci-hippodrome-follow-20181116-story.html

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/14/opinions/fbi-hate-crimes-data-whats-missing-berry-wiggins/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/22/fact-check-trumps-claims-migrant-caravan

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/robert-bowers-suspected-synagogue-shooter-believes-migrant-caravan-is-jewish-conspiracy.html

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/newsy/factchecking-the-suggestion-george-soros-paid-kavanaugh-protesters

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/us/gab-robert-bowers-pittsburgh-synagogue-shootings.html
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/documenting-hate-new-american-nazis/

If the tilting of the Supreme Court to the far right indicates that henceforth "religious freedom" means those who open the doors to the public can now discriminate against doing business with those of whom their religion disapproves, the answer should be nationwide and local boycotts of merchants who "exercise their religious freedom" to violate the rights of others. Nothing like causing them to lose the almighty buck to make a point. For those who oppose discrimination against any group, and especially the LGBTQ community and their supporters, it is in their right to use their freedoms to inform the community and to support those who are friendly to all and welcome their business. There are many more who do not discriminate than the narrow-minded holier than thou intolerant who do. .

POLITICO.COM

Major shift at Supreme Court on Covid-19 orders

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to bar New York state from reimposing

The meaning of freedom for which so many died defending it

Heavily edited, reduced version appeared in the editions of the Sky Hi News, May 31, 2017.

So how are you celebrating Memorial Day? Will it be a long weekend  with friends and families and backyard barbecues? Or did you put up your flag  with a sense that you did your patriotic duty? Or have you reflected a bit  on the meaning of Memorial Day,  to commemorate those who died in defense of our country? I plan all.  Running through my head  is Lee Greenwood’s great lyric which  captures the meaning of Memorial Day the best:

“And I'm proud to be an American

Where at least I know I'm free

And I won't forget the ones who died who gave that right to me

And I'll gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today

Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land, God Bless the USA.”

Those words are ones that both sides of the ideological spectrum can agree upon.  However, in our polarized America, we have differing views of what freedom, the  core value saluted in those lyrics, means.

My grandson, raised in a Colorado household of both  immigrants  and  those who could trace New World ancestors back to the late 1600’s, just returned from a visit with relatives of his nearest and dearest in a southern state.  His comment was, “they live in a different world and now I understand why Donald Trump is popular there”.  To him  profound  political divisions became real.

I  was not surprised. I grew up in Oklahoma, the reddest of any state, but I spent the remainder  of my life in large urban areas both in Europe and in the US and  married  a refugee from eastern Europe.  I have experienced  authoritarianism and  non-free societies  practiced first hand. Not everyone has that perspective, but it has influenced my political thought about what freedom means and what I find disturbing today in this very politically polarized America.

While I respect others’ rights to hold values that differ even from what  I was taught in my  Oklahoma youth,   I see personal freedom as protected  in our Constitution’s  First Amendment : right to free speech, press freedom, religious freedom, and the freedom to peacefully assemble. I see those freedoms under attack  today by some. For them,  free speech is reserved for those who  agree with personal views, but otherwise those opinions are to be minimized, shouted down and physically intimidated. Religious freedom is not only free from government interference to practice it  or to be free of a  religion established, preferred, or enforced by a government,   but now  it  means to some freedom to refuse to serve or give the same rights to those  with different religious beliefs and values.   Freedom of the press means loyalty to one media outlet and to consider all others prejudicial  and “the enemy of the people”  regardless of the merits of the arguments or the sources of  facts. Facts become those presented by the favored news outlet; otherwise there are no such things as facts.  The freedom to assemble in peaceful protest is viewed as motivated and organized  by some sinister force to be disrespected as certainly not arising  from real self interest or values of morality and a sense of fairness.  Our military  defends our freedoms from foreign threats, but the real threat  to our traditional views of freedom lies  within our own country’s hearts and minds.

Our nation is a secular one. There is no official religion with good reason

n which was carefully constructed in and protected by the Constitution.There were reason for it: our founder saw the witch hunts and persecution in the colonies which did try to establish by law an official religion, and who thought freedom meant to practice only their brand of belief, but it did not apply to others. Our founders also realized that having an official state religion had led to the persecution in England and Europe from which they had fled. Let us not forget that. The truth is as relevant today as it was then. There are many reasons American democracy is exceptional, but the first amendment is one of them. Having a state religion enforced by law and authorities is an excuse , a rationale , and a motivation to persecute or discriminate against opponents, political or relgious.

Muftic: The true meaning of Freedom of Religion | SkyHiDailyNews.com

As we celebrated the independence of our country, let us also celebrate our founders of independence who later put into our constitution an amendment to protect the freedom to

SKYHIDAILYNEWS.COM

As we celebrated the 4th, let us also celebrate our freedom of religion, too.

On this 4th of July week, as we celebrated the independence of our country, let us also celebrate our founders of independence who later put into our constitution an amendment to protect the freedom to practice one's religion. It should be a reminder to those who would discriminate against believers in a religion and for us to condemn those who use hatred, ignorance and fear as a way to rise to political power. Unfortunately we are seeing much of this in Donald Trump's rhetoric and in his promotion of a Muslim ban. Even more unfortunate, many of his supporters agree. Somewhere along the way they missed or forgot that chapter about the First Amendment in their civics/social studies/American history classes but it is an element that makes this country the exceptional experiment in democracy that it is.

The First Amendment “prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion…”We have had waves of religious hatred in our past, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, even in my lifetime and sadly now, but our ship of democracy rights itself because of the provisions in the Constitution and the reminders of the values our founders set in it. We have seen discrimination in institutions that refuse to let practitioners of certain religions become members and we turned away boatloads of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. I remember the slurs uttered when John F Kennedy was a candidate for president, the first Catholic to be elected.

Churches, mosques, and temples are still being desecrated and burned and practitioners have been targets of mass shootings.  There are those who argue their freedom means they can discriminate against those of a different religion and impose by law elements of their religion’s belief on others who do not share their doctrines. Ironically, those who irrationally fear the imposition of Sharia law in the United States as part of their fear of Muslims are also protected by the First Amendment’s forbidding the establishment of a state religion.(though banning Sharia law courts ruled is discriminatory). Fortunately court rulings have upheld the original meaning of the amendment and hate crimes have special penalties in our statute books.

I was interviewed by chance, waiting for a ride home outside the Denver Center for Performing Arts in Denver this  winter after a breathtaking performance by Shen Yun, .a New York based

Chinese performing dance company. The interview landed in a New York international newspaper focusing on uncensored Chinese news, the Epoch Times. It accurately portrayed my remarks about freedom of religion and explained my passion about that right. For the full interview, go to http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1986176-journalist-sees-hope-for-freedom-in-shen-yun/#

Here is an excerpt:

“I’ve been through an awful lot, I’ve seen an awful lot,” said the 78-year-old journalist. Ms. Muftic had lived through the Cold War, married an Eastern European in Berlin at the time, and seen many people persecuted for their faiths under totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe during her career.
So learning that New York-based Shen Yun was reviving a divinely inspired culture lost under China’s communist regime, and seeing those events played out in the dance, was hopeful to Ms. Muftic.
“I understand the persecution of that. I’ve seen it myself, I’ve felt it myself, I know what it is about. The hope of that to me is wonderful. And I don’t think we can lose that hope.”



Note: An attempt to ban Sharia law by Oklahoma was also unconstitutional, per a court ruling, because it would be discriminatory.  This is not the same as establishing a state religion, however.http://www.salon.com/2013/08/16/judge_rules_oklahoma_cant_ban_sharia_law/

One of the controversies regarding freedom of religion has also been whether a merchant who disagrees with the beliefs of a customer can refuse to serve them.  Is permitting that impeding a person's freedom of religion? Or is it impeding the right of the customer to practice their religion?  The issue is not freedom of relgion. It is an attempt to use religion to rationalize practicing discrimination in a public accommodation. That violates  another amendment to the Constitution forbidding discrimination. In my mind, as a business person serving someone with whom I disagree is not the same as a government keeping me from going to church and praying to my God  nor in my private life does it keep me from chosing my friends based on their beliefs.

Freedom of religion, a right so often misunderstood

Recently the Tennessee House of Representatives attempted to pass a law that would have made the Bible the official state book. Their Senate realized, after their State’s Attorney General opined this, it would violate the First Amendment by approving the Book. It was establishing a religion. The attempt ended.

 Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, had made a public point in an invitation to a Christian event in January 25, that the US was founded by Christians and this is a Christian country.  That this country was founded by Christians is true. The majority of the US practices Christianity today, but  the Constitution defined freedom of religion quite differently than that envisioned by our earliest settlers.

The Pilgrims, Christians, came to the US to seek freedom to practice their religion, but not to establish freedom for others. The Mayflower Compact, the document written aboard their ship, was an understanding of what kind of colony they were founding and what the attitude should be of the non-Pilgrims accompanying them. They wrote as their purpose, “ for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith.”  By the time of the Declaration of Independence and later officially when the US Constitution was written, freedom of religion was meant for all practitioners of religion and even non-practitioners. The First Amendment made it clear that there should be no state religion. It reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religions, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” 

The definition of freedom of religion addresses freedom for whom to do what.   The Pilgrims and Puritans came to establish freedom of religion for themselves free to practice their own brand of Christianity free of the King of England. Tolerance of others was not their purpose. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony hung Quakers for not going along with their concept of purification.  Roger Williams left the Colony to found Rhode Island because “As faith is the free work of the Holy Spirit, it cannot be forced on a person.” 

 Nearly every colony had established their state approved religion before 1776.  Maryland tried to legislate tolerance. Unfortunately it got tangled up in the religious conflicts of the Cromwellian era and intolerance of Catholics lasted until the signing of the Declaration of Independence when Baptists and Presbyterians demanded disestablishment of state churches and protection of religious freedom

It was the son of the Age of Reason, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1779 and the concepts were incorporated in the First Amendment and who argued for separation of church and state.  The Supreme Court has upheld the concept but modern  applications have raised  issues never envisioned by our forefathers, leading  to many hair splitting rulings and more to come.

 Yes, Christian protestants were the first founders of our nation but it took another 160 years for our forefathers  to understand  that separation of church and state was crucial to freedom for all to practice their religion and that there should be no  established state religion.

 A version of this appeared in the www.skyhidailynews.com May 29, 2015

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-pilgrims/2013/11/22/9f93e822-52c1-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html

http://www.shmoop.com/church-and-state/supreme-court-school-vouchers.html

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa031700a.htm