Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Special to The Greanville Post | Commentary No. 73: “The Repubs., the Religious Right, and the Criminalization of Religious Belief ”

Dateline: January 12, 2017

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 115^th.  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 2^nd 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. 

In my view, this is the ground on which the offensive against the very offensive views of Cruz, et al, should be undertaken: they want to use the power of the State to enforce one particular set of religious views against all others.  VERY dangerous for the body politic.  For if this kind of government-protected, religious-based, civil law discrimination against all believers who don’t happen to agree with the interpretation of “God” and “the Bible” held by Religious Rightist/Fundamentalists/Dominionists of the Cruz/Pence/Lee stripe, as well as of non-believers, makes its way into the law, what’s next?

However, in terms of abortion and contraceptive rights, the matter becomes even more serious.  Again, the position of those on the Religious Right who would ban abortion completely, or who would not use the “time-of-viability” standard that is generally accepted by the supporters of abortion rights/freedom-of-choice-in-the-outcome-of-pregnancy, or who would use the “fetal heartbeat” standard that is not regarded by medical science as an indication of any ability of a fetus to survive outside the womb, or who would legally sanction the religious view that “life begins at the moment of conception,” is that any violation of any of the legal rules that might be established under any of the above conceptions of “life,” would be enforced through the use of the criminal law, against either the women or their care providers, or both.  As their supporters will clearly tell you, all of the positions described above are sanctioned by them on the basis of their interpretation of Biblical Law, that is on the basis of a set of religious doctrines/dogmas to which they hold. 

Just like there are many in the LGBTQ community who are quite religious, so are many women who seek abortions and providers who provides them.  And of course, in this arena too there are many non-believers.  And so what the abortion-rights banners want to do is return to the time when the criminal law was used to enforce one particular set of religious beliefs against all of the others, both religious and non-religious.

It is to these grounds that I believe we must turn the battle.  Do I believe in the “woman’s right to choose?”  Of course, I do.  Do I believe in the rights of the LGBTQ community to live as equals, with equal protection of the law, as under the 14h Amendment?  Of course I do.  But what we have now shaping up under the Trumpite/Repub./Religious Right machine is actually a possible return to the European religious wars of the 16^th and 17^th centuries, in which people slaughtered each other in the tens of thousands over particular interpretations of Biblical text that were at odds with one another. 

I believe that facing a very determined Repub./Fundamentalist/Religious Right in power, that the abortion rights forces must move beyond the “woman’s right to choose” and the “Constitutional right to privacy” (which is only an implied one) arguments.  I believe that the LGBTQ community has to move beyond “fairness,” “justice,” and even the equal protection clause of the 14^th amendment (of which argument I was a very early supporter, even before the development of the “Prop. 8” battle).  What the Religious Right wants to do is use the power of government, of the State, in the civil law in one case, the criminal law in the other, to impose their own religious doctrines and dogmas on everyone else, regardless of their own religious beliefs.  It is to this formation of religious bigotry, oppression, and authoritarianism that we must re-direct the struggle —- indeed for true religious liberty.

These are very dangerous times.

ADDENDA

Postscript One:  As I have noted many times in my columns, the Bible from which the Religious Rightists draw their doctrines/dogmas is the “King James Version.”  What an irony we have here.  That Bible, used now in this country as the justification for religious repression on a massive scale, was an especially commissioned English translation, the first officially-sanctioned one in fact, by the Church of
England.  It was created in part to help the nation, now under a Scottish King-by-inheritance, who, while a Protestant himself, had a Catholic mother, Mary Queen of Scots, heal from the violent religious wars which had wracked it from time-to-time in the 16^th Century.  Yes, the Bloody Mary is not just a drink (one of my favorites, as it happens).  In mid-century, the real Queen Mary attempted to re-impose Catholicism upon the nation, which, under Henry VIII, had left Rome.  She failed, but in the process much English blood was spilled.

Postscript two:  As Dahlia Lithwick tells us: “Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing had one moment that revealed why so many are terrified of him. . . . For hours on end, Sessions rebuffed, usually extremely deftly, forceful questioning from Senate Democrats about controversial statements …. In the late afternoon [however]  Sessions had this terse exchange with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

“Whitehouse suggested that lists were already circulating suggesting there might be purges or demotions of certain career appointees in the Justice Department. Whitehouse wondered whether Sessions would have a problem with career lawyers ‘with secular beliefs,’ having in the past criticized department attorneys for being secular.  Sessions replied that he has used that language about secular attorneys to differentiate between people who recognize objective ‘truth’ and those who take positions ‘in which truth is not sufficiently respected.’ [In my view, that was bad enough.  But the exchange went on.]

“Whitehouse replied, with a leading, and perhaps slightly conclusory question: ‘And a secular person has just a good a claim to understanding the truth as a person who is religious, correct?’ At which point Sessions responded, ‘Well, I’m not sure.’ For a few seconds the Senate chamber seemed to go completely silent.”

SJ addendum: This is the man who has been picked by the Trumpites (remember, both Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon came to Trump from the Cruz campaign) to be the next Attorney General of the United States.  Are they very rapidly returning to the embrace of the from-Reagan-onwards Republican base in the Religious Right?  You can bet your bottom dollar they are. 

So.  You think that I am overstating the case here?  I suggest, respectfully, that you think again.

MAIN IMAGE: Illustration by DonkeyHotey

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By Niles Niemuth, wsws.org

11 January 2017

President Barack Obama capped his eight years in office with a vacuous and hypocritical farewell address Tuesday night delivered at the McCormick Place convention center in downtown Chicago.

The first-ever presidential farewell address delivered outside of Washington, DC had the atmospherics of an overblown, cheap spectacle. Obama strode onto the stage like a rock star, flanked by oversized American flags, a massive illuminated presidential seal and an introductory soundtrack by the rock band U2.

As with every address Obama has delivered over the last eight years, his speech in Chicago was full of clichés, his rhetoric padded with empty phrases and delivered with a false gravitas, signaled by his trademark pursed lips and affected whisper.

The speech was rife with contradictions, the starkest being the juxtaposition of Obama’s boasting of the great social progress achieved by his administration and his warning of threats to American democracy arising from ever-growing social inequality and economic insecurity.

The president declared: “If I had told you eight years ago that America would reverse a great recession, reboot our auto industry, and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history… if I had told you that we would open up a new chapter with the Cuban people, shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program without firing a shot, and take out the mastermind of 9/11… if I had told you that we would win marriage equality, and secure the right to health insurance for another 20 million of our fellow citizens—you might have said our sights were set a little too high.

“By almost every measure, America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started.”

He made no attempt to explain why, given this impressive record of social progress and foreign policy success, his party was routed in the elections and the billionaire demagogue Donald Trump was preparing to succeed him in the White House.

A basic component of the answer, of course, is the grotesquely false rendering of his record and the state of American society as he leaves office. Hardly a week goes by without a new report on signs of extreme social crisis or ever-more obscene levels of wealth among the financial elite. Just in the past month, studies have been published showing the first decline in US life expectancy in 23 years, plunging pay for young adults, a 72 percent surge in deaths from synthetic opioids, and home ownership rates at historic lows for young people.

Other surveys have documented a $237 billion increase in the wealth of the world’s richest 200 billionaires, driven largely by the US stock market boom under Obama, and an acceleration of the transfer of wealth from the bottom half of the US population to the top one percent.

In boasting of presiding over a record number of consecutive monthly job increases, Obama neglected to mention that 94 percent of the new jobs created in the last eight years have been either part-time or temporary.

Noticeably absent from Obama’s remarks was any mention of the social conditions in the city where he was speaking, which is ravaged by high levels of poverty and unemployment, an epidemic of police killings and violence, and a skyrocketing homicide rate.

He lamented in general terms the growth of social inequality and the dangers it poses to American democracy—that is, the threat of a social explosion in the United States.

“While the top one percent has amassed a bigger share of wealth and income, too many families, in inner cities and rural counties, have been left behind—the laid-off factory worker; the waitress and health care worker who struggle to pay the bills—convinced that the game is fixed against them, that their government only serves the interests of the powerful—a recipe for more cynicism and polarization in our politics.”

As always, he spoke as if none of these social ills had anything to do with the policies pursued by his administration, including severe cuts in social spending on the one side and the bailout of the banks and flooding of money into the stock market on the other.

Another piece of monumental hypocrisy was Obama’s pose of fighting to defend democracy when he has done more to destroy it than perhaps any other US president.

“Democracy can buckle when we give in to fear,” he declared. “So just as we, as citizens, must remain vigilant against external aggression, we must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are. That’s why, for the past eight years, I’ve worked to put the fight against terrorism on a firm legal footing. That’s why we’ve ended torture, worked to close Gitmo, and reform our laws governing surveillance to protect privacy and civil liberties.”

This is from a president who has personally authorized the assassination of American citizens and thousands of others around the world with drones-fired missiles, protected and promoted those in the CIA responsible for torture, kept the prison at Guantanamo Bay open, persecuted journalists and jailed whistleblowers, militarized the police, and expanded the illegal surveillance of electronic communications.

Obama also used his farewell address take parting shots at Russia and China, lumping the war against ISIS with efforts to counter both countries, and arguing that aggressive action against the world’s second- and third-largest nuclear-armed powers was the only way to avoid war.

“[T]he fight against extremism and intolerance and sectarianism are of a piece with the fight against authoritarianism and nationalist aggression,” he said. “If the scope of freedom and respect for the rule of law shrinks around the world, the likelihood of war within and between nations increases, and our own freedoms will eventually be threatened.”

Obama spent his eight years in office waging war abroad and war on the working class at home. With Tuesday’s speech, he passed the reins to Trump with a shrug.

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