ElNono
09-09-2015, 03:01 AM
I thought this was a very good read.
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How the GOP’s Religious Freedom Rhetoric Could Undermine the Party
If conservatives want to insist on the priority of rights, they shouldn't be surprised when they see their other goals slipping away.
By Alan Wolfe - 09/08/15, 08:29 PM EDT
Has anyone noticed that the further right Republican conservatives move, the further left their rhetoric becomes?
Consider the way current Republican contenders for president have reacted to the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who spent Labor Day weekend in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. “This,” Mike Huckabee told ABC’s “This Week,” “is what [President Thomas] Jefferson warned us about. That’s judicial tyranny.”
Huckabee is not the only Republican presidential candidate who invokes the language of the radical left to defend the positions of the radical right. “I’ll tell you, I stand with Kim Davis unequivocally,” echoed fellow candidate Ted Cruz. “I stand with her or anyone else the government is trying to persecute for standing up for their faith.”
“She’s not going to resign,” one of her lawyers, Mat Staver, declared. “She’s not going to sacrifice her conscience, so she’s doing what Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote about his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, which is to pay the consequences for her decision.”
Not too long ago, religious conservatives were happy to be the moral majority, wielding government power against people too extreme in their demands and too outlandish in their lifestyle to be accepted as normal. But with gay marriage now legal everywhere in the United States except American Samoa, and with the majority of Americans now in favor of it, right-wing politicians are increasingly falling back on the language of rights—transforming from a moral majority to an aggrieved minority. Liberal elites, they insist, constitute an establishment persecuting the godly the way the Romans crucified Christ. The Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of gay marriage, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told his followers after the decision, “will pave the way for an all out assault against the religious freedom rights of Christians. … This ruling must not be used as pretext by Washington to erode our right to religious liberty.”
Freedom, liberty, rights, resistance to tyranny—these words are quintessentially American. What conservatives seem to forget, however, is that they usually constitute the rallying cry of those seeking greater social justice, enhanced equality and toleration of difference. If conservatives want to insist on the priority of rights, God bless them. But they should not be surprised when the other goals they seek—limited government, opposition to affirmative action, the importance of moral obligation, and the defense of hierarchy and authority—all become more difficult to achieve.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/republicans-religious-freedom-backfire-213130
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How the GOP’s Religious Freedom Rhetoric Could Undermine the Party
If conservatives want to insist on the priority of rights, they shouldn't be surprised when they see their other goals slipping away.
By Alan Wolfe - 09/08/15, 08:29 PM EDT
Has anyone noticed that the further right Republican conservatives move, the further left their rhetoric becomes?
Consider the way current Republican contenders for president have reacted to the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who spent Labor Day weekend in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. “This,” Mike Huckabee told ABC’s “This Week,” “is what [President Thomas] Jefferson warned us about. That’s judicial tyranny.”
Huckabee is not the only Republican presidential candidate who invokes the language of the radical left to defend the positions of the radical right. “I’ll tell you, I stand with Kim Davis unequivocally,” echoed fellow candidate Ted Cruz. “I stand with her or anyone else the government is trying to persecute for standing up for their faith.”
“She’s not going to resign,” one of her lawyers, Mat Staver, declared. “She’s not going to sacrifice her conscience, so she’s doing what Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote about his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, which is to pay the consequences for her decision.”
Not too long ago, religious conservatives were happy to be the moral majority, wielding government power against people too extreme in their demands and too outlandish in their lifestyle to be accepted as normal. But with gay marriage now legal everywhere in the United States except American Samoa, and with the majority of Americans now in favor of it, right-wing politicians are increasingly falling back on the language of rights—transforming from a moral majority to an aggrieved minority. Liberal elites, they insist, constitute an establishment persecuting the godly the way the Romans crucified Christ. The Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of gay marriage, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told his followers after the decision, “will pave the way for an all out assault against the religious freedom rights of Christians. … This ruling must not be used as pretext by Washington to erode our right to religious liberty.”
Freedom, liberty, rights, resistance to tyranny—these words are quintessentially American. What conservatives seem to forget, however, is that they usually constitute the rallying cry of those seeking greater social justice, enhanced equality and toleration of difference. If conservatives want to insist on the priority of rights, God bless them. But they should not be surprised when the other goals they seek—limited government, opposition to affirmative action, the importance of moral obligation, and the defense of hierarchy and authority—all become more difficult to achieve.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/republicans-religious-freedom-backfire-213130