Closer to Dominionism Every Day

The claim that one's personal religious freedom requires the freedom to ignore all rules and laws one doesn't like isn't American democracy; it's theocracy squared. That's Dominionism.

The Courier:

Hundreds of protesters, including Louisville Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, rallied Friday outside the federal courthouse on Broadway to protest new federal mandates that require coverage of contraception costs for most employees.

The protesters, part of a day of similar rallies planned in 164 cities around the country, took aim at what Roman Catholic bishops and their allies contend is an assault on religious liberty.

Give a freakazoid a contraception waiver, they'll want a pass to kill gays.


Ian Millhiser at Think Progress:

A North Dakota ballot intitative appears designed to allow anti-gay groups to openly defy bans on discrimination, and it is written so expansively that it could authorize thousands of North Dakotans to outright ignore everything from traffic lights to medical access laws — all in the name of supposedly protecting religous liberty. Under the proposed state constitutional amendment, which appears on state ballots June 12:

Government may not burden a person’s or religious organization’s religious liberty. The right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief may not be burdened unless the government proves it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing the specific act or refusal to act and has used the least restrictive means to further that interest. A burden includes indirect burdens such as withholding benefits, assessing penalties, or an exclusion from programs or access to facilities.

To translate this a bit, many states and the federal government exempt religious believers from some laws that “substantially burden” their religious faith. The North Dakota initiative, however, targets any law that merely “burdens” a person’s religious faith. In other words, even the most minor inconveniences to religious practices would be suspect under the initiative. A person who is running late to church could claim it is illegal to make them obey traffic lights.

Worse, the law could have severe consequences for gay men, lesbians and other groups disfavored by the religious right. As law professor Marci Hamilton explains, the initiative appears worded to bypass the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez which held that anti-gay groups cannot force state universities to fund them in violation of the university’s anti-discrimination policy.

Nor is the initiative the only example of the religious right trying to be above the law. An appeals court in New Mexico recently rejected an argument by an anti-gay business owner which could have exempted New Mexicans from any anti-discrimination law — including bans on race and gender discrimination — that they have a religious objection to. Similarly, conservatives ranging from the Catholic Bishops to Speaker John Boehner claim that the Constitution gives them sweeping immunity from laws they disagree with. Even conservative Justice Antonin Scalia has rejected the bishops’ view.

These are the same people who rave on about muslin terrists, which is as hilarious as it is frightening, because they are true soul mates with the Muslim freakazoids running theocracies in Iran, Saudia Arabia and Afghanistan (and soon Egypt.)

David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

It's amazing how seamlessly rightwing rhetoric on healthcare mandates ties in with forcing the troops to pray to Jesus and abolition of public education for these people. Sometimes I wish they could go found their own little country somewhere, fulfill their strange mix of economic libertarian and social theocracy on their own turf and see how well it works out for them.

Go Galt, freakazoids! Wall Street and the Catlick Church were made for each other.