What the media isn't reporting on Arizona religious liberty bill and Brewer's veto.

Here are couple of great pieces on the Arizona religious liberty bill.  Information one of course didn't hear in the general media treatment of the controversy.

One by Rich Lowry of National Review printed by Politico Magazine.

The other in the Federalist.

It's a shame when the media no longer seeks to give both sides of an issue.

Evangelical Al Mohler speaks to Mormons at Brigham Young University

A few weeks ago Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville spoke at Brigham Young University. 

 I deeply appreciate your invitation to speak at Brigham Young University and to address the faculty at this greatly respected center of learning. I am so glad to be on this campus, filled with so many gracious people, such admirable students, and so many committed scholars on the faculty.  To many people, shaped in their worldview by the modern age and its constant mandate to accommodate, it will seem very odd that a Baptist theologian and seminary president would be invited to speak at the central institution of intellectual life among the Latter-Day Saints.

But here I am, and I am thankful for the invitation. The wonderfully prophetic Catholic novelist Flannery O’Connor rightly warned that we must “push back against the age as hard as it is pressing you.” I have come to Brigham Young University because I intend with you to push back against the modernist notion that only the accommodated can converse. There are those who sincerely believe that meaningful and respectful conversation can take place only among those who believe the least—that only those who believe the least and thus may disagree the least can engage one another in the kind of conversation that matters. I reject that notion, and I reject it forcefully. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, that is the kind of idea that must not be cast aside lightly, but thrown with full force.

Then he concludes with

The conflict of liberties we are now experiencing is unprecedented and ominous. Forced to choose between erotic liberty and religious liberty, many Americans would clearly sacrifice freedom of religion. How long will it be until many becomes most?

This is what brings me to Brigham Young University today. I am not here because I believe we are going to heaven together. I do not believe that. I believe that salvation comes only to those who believe and trust only in Christ and in his substitutionary atonement for salvation. I believe in justification by faith alone, in Christ alone. I love and respect you as friends, and as friends we would speak only what we believe to be true, especially on matters of eternal significance. We inhabit separate and irreconcilable theological worlds, made clear with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity. And yet here I am, and gladly so. We will speak to one another of what we most sincerely believe to be true, precisely because we love and respect one another.

I do not believe that we are going to heaven together, but I do believe we may go to jail together. I do not mean to exaggerate, but we are living in the shadow of a great moral revolution that we commonly believe will have grave and devastating human consequences. Your faith has held high the importance of marriage and family. Your theology requires such an affirmation, and it is lovingly lived out by millions of Mormon families. That is why I and my evangelical brothers and sisters are so glad to have Mormon neighbors. We stand together for the natural family, for natural marriage, for the integrity of sexuality within marriage alone, and for the hope of human flourishing.

From moral majority to prophetic minority.

That's a line taken from Russell Moore, the incoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. It's his analysis of the position of Christians in today's American society.  Moore is a very bright, youngish (Anyone under 50 is young.) and  articulate.

This is taken from his interview with the Wall Street Journal.

'The Bible Belt is collapsing," says Russell Moore. Oddly, the incoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission doesn't seem upset. In a recent visit to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Moore explains that he thinks the Bible Belt's decline may be "bad for America, but it's good for the church."

Why?  Because "we are no longer the moral majority. We are a prophetic minority."

The phrase is arresting coming from such a prominent religious leader—akin to a general who says the Army has shrunk to the point it can no longer fight two wars. A youthful 41, Mr. Moore is among the leaders of a new generation who think that evangelicals need to recognize that their values no longer define mainstream American culture the way they did 50 or even 20 years ago.

On gay marriage, abortion, even on basic religious affiliation, the culture has moved away. So evangelicals need a new way of thinking—a new strategy, if you will—to attract and keep believers, as well as to influence American politics.

The easy days of mobilizing a ready-made majority are gone. By "prophetic minority," he means that Christians must return to the days when they were a moral example and vanguard—defenders of belief in a larger unbelieving culture. He views this less as a defeat than as an opportunity.

I would agree with him on the opportunity language.  Christians have or should have a long term view of history. Longer than even one nation's lifespan. Ultimately, the falsehoods which have influenced modern culture will be found wanting in short order.  A few generations.

He's also looking to refocus their approach to society and the culture.

He is definitely pushing a new tone for this generation of evangelicals. "This is the end of 'slouching toward Gomorrah,' " he says. Not only is the doomsaying not winning Christians any popularity contests, but he doesn't think it's religiously appropriate either. "We were never promised that the culture would embrace us."

He also questions the political approach of what was once called "the religious right." Though his boyish looks bring to mind the former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, Mr. Moore is decidedly not a fan of the "values voter checklists" the group employs. "There is no Christian position on the line-item veto," Mr. Moore says. "There is no Christian position on the balanced-budget amendment."

Which is not to say that Mr. Moore wants evangelicals to "turn inward" and reject the larger U.S. culture. Rather, he wants to refocus the movement on serving as a religious example battling in the public square on "three core issues"—life, marriage and religious liberty.

On protecting the unborn, Mr. Moore says he is a "long-term optimist" but "a short-term pessimist." He doesn't get excited every time a poll shows that more Americans are pro-life than pro-choice. He worries that the whole issue may be changed soon "by technology"—that is, chemically induced abortions may soon become the norm, with abortion clinics no longer the focal point of the debate. He also worries that the fight for the unborn has become a one-party battle, hardened along a Democrat and Republican divide. "The letterhead of Democrats for Life," Mr. Moore says, "doesn't include the names of any current members of Congress."

But he also believes that this battle will not be won in Washington: "You have to take it to a personal level." He touts the many faith-based pregnancy crisis centers that not only try to talk women out of having abortions, but also help with child-care, job training and housing—"all of the things that have brought them there in the first place."

Roe v Wade of marriage

Back from vacation last week and ready to comment on what happened on the recent Supreme Court decisions on marriage.  It looks like the Supreme Court issued a Roe v. Wade type decision on marriage.  At least that's what some commentators are saying.  Here's one by professor Hadley Arkes who references Scalia's dissent.

These decisions, handed down by the Court today, affect to be limited in their reach, but they are even worse than they appear, and they cannot be cabined. They lay down the predicates for litigation that will clearly unfold now, and with short steps sure to come, virtually all of the barriers to same-sex marriage in this country can be swept away. Even constitutional amendments, passed by so many of the states, can be overridden now. The engine put in place to power this drive is supplied by Justice Kennedy’s “hate speech,” offering itself as the opinion of the Court in U.S. v. Windsor. Kennedy wrote for the Court in striking down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the part of the act that recognized as “marriage,” in federal law, only the union of a man and woman. 

In Kennedy’s translation, the Defense of Marriage Act showed its animus in its very title: The defense of marriage was simply another way of disparaging and “denigrating” gays and lesbians, and denying dignity to their “relationships.” As Justice Scalia noted so tellingly in his dissent, Kennedy could characterize then as bigots the 85 senators who voted for the Act, along with the president (Clinton) who signed it. Every plausible account of marriage as a relation of a man and woman can then be swept away, as so much cover for malice and blind hatred.

 As Scalia suggested, that opinion can now become the predicate for challenges to the laws on marriage in all of the States. A couple of the same sex need merely go into a federal court and invoke Justice Kennedy’s opinion in the DOMA case (U.S. v. Windsor): The Supreme Court has declared now that a law that refuses to recognize same-sex marriage is animated by a passion to demean and denigrate. Any such law cannot find a rational ground of justification. As Kennedy had famously said in Romer v. Evans, those kinds of laws can be explained only in terms of an irrational “animus.”

In summary, the decision is another power grab by our liberal elites in the judiciary and expands the cultural wars on the marriage front.  And it opens the door to further attacks on religious liberties - one of the chief reasons for our break with Britain during the Revolutionary War period.  In my estimation the left will not be satisfied until they stifle all dissent.  They'll use the use of tax codes and anti-discrimination lawsuits with the threat of fines and more to achieve their goal of silencing dissent from leftist/liberal orthodoxy.

The threat to religious liberty and hence freedom is very real and growing in our state and nation.

The passage of gay "marriage" by the Minnesota state legislature is the most significant attack on religious liberties in our state's history.  It certainly won't come all at once but rather incrementally.  Many will pooh pooh such a comment but I believe it is true based on experience in other jurisdictions with same sex "marriage" and the stated intentions of its proponents in the Minnesota state legislature.  Proponents of man, woman marriage will treated as the new racists.

Here's an insightful commentary by RR Reno, editor of First Things entitled, "Religion and Public Life in America"  printed in Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.

He talks about the nature of the attack here.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY is being redefined in America, or at least many would like it to be. Our secular establishment wants to reduce the autonomy of religious institutions and limit the influence of faith in the public square. The reason is not hard to grasp. In America, “religion” largely means Christianity, and today our secular culture views orthodox Christian churches as troublesome, retrograde, and reactionary forces. They’re seen as anti-science, anti-gay, and anti-women—which is to say anti-progress as the Left defines progress. Not surprisingly, then, the Left believes society will be best served if Christians are limited in their influence on public life. And in the short run this view is likely to succeed. There will be many arguments urging Christians to keep their religion strictly religious rather than “political.” And there won’t just be arguments; there will be laws as well. We’re in the midst of climate change—one that’s getting colder and colder toward religion.

Former Georgetown law professor Chai Feldblum—who is also a current Obama appointee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—has written about the coming conflicts between gay rights and religious liberty. With an admirable frankness she admits, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.” Again, the Bob Jones case is in the background, as are other aspects of civil rights law designed to stamp out racial discrimination. For someone like Feldblum, when religious individuals and institutions don’t conform to the new consensus about sexual morality, their freedoms should be limited...

It is precisely the possibilities evoked by Nussbaum and Feldblum that now motivate the Obama administration’s intransigence about allowing places like Notre Dame to be classified as religious employers. In the Bob Jones case, the justices were very careful to stipulate that “churches or other purely religious institutions” remain protected by the First Amendment’s principle of free exercise. By “accommodating” rather than counting Notre Dame and other educational and charitable organizations as religious employers, secular liberalism can target them in the future, as they have done to Catholic adoption agencies that won’t place children with homosexual couples.

A recent book by University of Chicago professor of philosophy and law Brian Leiter outlines what I believe will become the theoretical consensus that does away with religious liberty in spirit if not in letter. “There is no principled reason,” he writes, “for legal or constitutional regimes to single out religion for protection.” Leiter describes religious belief as a uniquely bad combination of moral fervor and mental blindness, serving no public good that justifies special protection. More significantly—and this is Leiter’s main thesis—it is patently unfair to afford religion such protection. Why should a Catholic or a Baptist have a special right while Peter Singer, a committed utilitarian, does not? Evoking the principle of fairness, Leiter argues that everybody’s conscience should be accorded the same legal protections. Thus he proposes to replace religious liberty with a plenary “liberty of conscience.”

Leiter’s argument is libertarian. He wants to get the government out of the business of deciding whose conscience is worth protecting. This mentality seems to expand freedom, but that’s an illusion. In practice it will lead to diminished freedom, as is always the case with any thoroughgoing libertarianism.

Let me give an example. The urban high school my son attended strictly prohibits hats and headgear. It does so in order to keep gang-related symbols and regalia out of the school. However, the school recognizes a special right of religious freedom, and my son, whose mother is Jewish and who was raised as a Jew, was permitted to wear a yarmulke. Leiter’s argument prohibits this special right, but his alternative is unworkable. The gang members could claim that their deep commitments of loyalty to each other create a conscientious duty to wear gang regalia. If everybody’s conscience must be respected, then nobody’s will be, for order and safety must be preserved.

 What should our response be?

First and most obvious—defend religious liberty in the courts. Although I have depicted deep cultural pressures that work against religious liberty, we live in a society governed by the rule of law. Precedent matters, and good lawyering can make a substantive difference.

Second—fight against the emerging legal theories that threaten to undermine religious liberty. This is a battle to be carried out in the law schools and among political theorists. For decades, legal activists on the Left have been subsidized by legal clinics and special programs run in law schools. Defenders of religious liberty need to push back.

Third—fight the cultural battle. Legal theory flexes and bends in accord with the dominant consensus. This Brian Leiter knows, which is why he does not much worry about the current state of constitutional law. He goes directly to the underlying issues, which concern the role of religion in public life.

We must meet the challenge by showing that religion is indeed special. Religious people are the most likely Americans to be involved in civic life, and the most generous in their charitable contributions. This needs to be highlighted again and again. Moreover, we need to draw a contrast with the Nones, who tend to outsource their civic responsibilities and charitable obligations to government in the form of expanded government programs and higher taxes.

There is another, deeper argument that must be made in defense of religion: It is the most secure guarantee of freedom. America’s Founders, some of them Christian and others not, agreed as a matter of principle that the law of God trumps the law of men. This has obvious political implications: The Declaration of Independence appeals to the unalienable rights given by our Creator that cannot be overridden or taken away. In this sense, religion is especially beneficial. As Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI both emphasized, it gives transcendent substance to the rights of man that limit government. Put somewhat differently, religion gives us a place to stand outside politics, and without it we’re vulnerable to a system in which the state defines everything, which is the essence of tyranny. This is why gay marriage, which is sold as an expansion of freedom, is in fact a profound threat to liberty.

Finally, we must not accept a mentality of dhimmitude. The church, synagogue, and mosque have a tremendous solidity born of a communion of wills fused together in obedience to God. This gives people of faith the ability to fight with white fury for what they perceive to be a divine cause, which is of course a great force for righteousness—but also a dangerous threat to social peace, as early modern Europe knew only too well.

What most people don't realize is religious freedom is the first freedom listed in the First Amendment.  It's placed there for a reason.  Religious belief and practice are the most central to the human person.  This loss of religious conscience protection then threatens every other freedom.

Liberal news blog article highlights mindset of liberals who support marginalizing and privatizing religious liberties over homosexual marriage.

Andy Birkey with the Minnesota Independent a left/liberal news blog, takes issue with my assertion that religious liberties will invariably be attacked once homosexual marriage is legalized. He takes issue specifically with my recent blog post analogizing attacks to come from legalizing homosexual marriage with a recent New Jersey state discrimination ruling against a Methodist church group which refused to allow it's facility to be used for a homosexual civil union ceremony.

Rather than rebutting my concerns Birkey actually confirms them and provides an excellent example of the liberal mindset regarding privatization of religious faith and belief.

He begins by saying that these doomsday scenarios don't jive with the facts and the issue with the Methodist group in New Jersey is simply about getting tax breaks and benefits from the state not religious freedom.

But what’s missing from the story is that the church in question, Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, got tax breaks from the state of New Jersey because it has for years allowed the public to use its Boardwalk Pavilion for secular and religious events. The church also received state funding to improve the infrastructure around the pavilion. Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster requested to have their civil union ceremony at that pavilion and paid taxes that went to the church to pay for the pavilion.

In other words, if the public endorses recognition of homosexual relationships, religious groups which operate in the public should recognize and endorse such relationships through the use of their facilities which are made available to the public. Yet that's the point concerning threats to religious liberties -- religious groups which operate in the public must sacrifice their religious beliefs and convictions in order to continue operating in the public.

He points to the decision by the New Jersey civil rights division which ruled that if a religious group wants to operate in public it has to sacrifice it's publicly expressed, religiously based convictions to do so.

But the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights was pretty clear when it handed down its ruling against the church on Dec. 29: “When it invites the public at large to use it, the Association is subject to the Law Against Discrimination, and enforcement of that law in this context does not affect the Association’s constitutionally protected right to free exercise of religion.”

Birkey concludes by saying:

It’s another case of the religious right’s wanting its cake (taxpayer funds) and eating it too (denying rights to gays and lesbians).

So if religious groups want to operate in public they should expect to sacrifice their religious convictions or accept being treated as second class citizens, e.g. don't expect to participate as a tax exempt organization. But that's an example of the loss of religious liberties I'm talking about. The choice is either shut up about your religious convictions and be involved publicly or withdraw from public life. And of course, one can expect to face punitive fines under discrimination laws to insure you toe the line.

A good analogy for what will happen if marriage is redefined can be drawn from the treatment of organizations which opposed inter-racial marriage. (It's a faulty comparison because both practices are in fact anti-marriage -- the interracial marriage ban because it artificially kept some men and women from marrying due to their skin color and homosexual marriage because it eliminated the need for a man and a woman. But just the same homosexual marriage advocates love to make.) In the 1980s the US Supreme Court revoked the tax exempt status of a group which banned interracial marriage because the practice violated public policy. Well, if homosexual marriage is recognized as the law of the land then we should similarly expect churches refusing to recognize homosexual marriages to lose their tax exempt status.

I suspect Mr. Birkey would say churches should lose their tax exemption, because they're taking part in a public tax benefit. However, the founders viewed the power to tax as the power to destroy and the impetus for tax exemption was in part to encourage the public benefit churches and other religious groups provide, but also because they didn't want the state encroaching upon or controlling religious groups through the power to tax. Under Birkey's line of thinking it would seem reasonable to also limit a religious groups use of police, fire, sewer, water and other public services if they oppose homosexual marriage. Aren't these public benefits going to organizations which discriminate against homosexuals? And most churches welcome all of the public to attend their religious services.

Thus religious groups will be forced to sacrifice their religious convictions if they want to stay clear of governmental control through taxation, being fined or ultimately having their activities completely shut down.

Mr. Birkey's thinking logically reflects the privatized view of religious exemplified by the former Soviet Union. They had a clause in Soviet Constitution guaranteeing the separation of church and state and thus ostensibly guaranteeing religious freedom. Russians were free to practice their faith as long as it was totally privatized -- religious services and praying in their heads. But if they dared to act on their religious beliefs then they were in trouble with the state.

So too, today, in Mr. Birkey's world, you can practice your religious beliefs as long as it's done in private. But if you seek to practice your faith by helping the public through building a Boardwalk pavilion which can be of service for not only religious events but for the broader public then you will likely run into trouble with the state for acting on your beliefs.

In essence, if you step outside your private, cloistered religious world, be sure to leave your religious beliefs about public issues behind. Of course, that's impossible for the Christian believer to do. Faith without works is dead. The believer knows there is a higher authority than the state to which he or she owes allegiance. Martin Luther King articulated this view in his letter written in his Birmingham, Alabama jail cell during the battle for black civil rights.

An example of imposing pro-abortion view on Christians and loss of religious liberty

As society continues to secularize, the secular Left becomes less tolerant of those who refuse to toe the Left's line on issues like marriage and abortion. An example of this is a proposed bill in Victoria, Australia which would require medical personnel to perform abortions or make abortion referrals.

The effect if such a law goes into place? Shutting down all Catholic hospital maternity wards and emergency rooms in Australia, according to the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart. It's estimated that one-third of births are carried out in Catholic hospitals.

Historically, churches were the prime movers behind efforts to care for the sick by establishing hospitals. Now the secular elites are apparently willing to force church run hospitals to shut down.

No doubt similar efforts will increasingly be pushed in American society if we continue in a secularist drift.

The lines are increasingly being drawn between those who seek to honor the biblical witness and those who don't. Nominal Christianity is increasingly becoming a non option.