When Confederate States Attorney General and bigoted theocratic elf Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III announced yesterday that he was establishing a so-called "religious liberty task force," he was checking off one more box for extreme right-wing Christians who want to strictly govern our lives according to their warped beliefs. In his prepared remarks before the "Religious Liberty Summit", Beauregard made it clear that he was about stripping First Amendment rights from people that don't share the far right's zealotry and bigotry:
"A dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom. There can be no doubt. This is no little matter. It must be confronted and defeated."Hate group" like the rabidly anti-LGBTQ Westboro Baptist Church, Beauregard? Or just run-of-the-mill evangelical Bible-bangers whose liturgy is more Old Testament "fire and brimstone" than "do unto others as you would have them do unto you?"
This election, and much that has flowed from it, gives us a rare opportunity to arrest these trends. Such a reversal will not just be done with electoral victories, but by intellectual victories.
We have gotten to the point where courts have held that morality cannot be a basis for law; where ministers are fearful to affirm, as they understand it, holy writ from the pulpit; and where one group can actively target religious groups by labeling them a 'hate group' on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs." (our emphasis)
The mission of the task force would be to skew Justice Department actions away from fighting discrimination against protected groups toward protecting the bigoted actions of the ones discriminating, all in the bogus name of "religious freedom." We should recall that the same "religious freedom" argument was also used to justify segregation, by people with the same reactionary views that Beauregard advances today.
The framers of the Constitution were nearly all secular products of the Enlightenment, who didn't want the establishment of a particular "official" religion. Progressive Baptist minister Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes that:
"Plenty of Americans still value the separation of church and state and, along with it, the establishment clause’s guarantee of freedom of conscience for all people. Outside the circles of the extreme right, religious liberty has long been a progressive value, celebrated by abolitionists, tax resisters, conscientious objectors and religious minorities alike. [snip] But when (Christian right groups) talk about religious liberty, they are really talking about liberty for one specific religion — Christianity. In this context, the phrase has become a rallying cry for Christian conservatives whose religious and political interests align around issues like reversing Roe v. Wade and rolling back LGBT protections. Indeed, in their study 'Make America Christian Again,' sociologists Andrew Whitehead, Samuel Baker, and Joseph Perry conclude, independent of other influences, Christian nationalism was the single most determinative indicator of support for candidate Donald Trump in the 2016."Beauregard Sessions represents the nexus of right-wing politics and Christian nationalism, in the service of white supremacy. His task force is the leading edge of the movement to roll back protections against religious bigotry practiced by those Christian nationalists.
BONUS: The Bible-bangers are not only bigots, they're unpatriotic Putin admirers, like despicable "preacher" Jerry Fallwell, Jr.
(image: rmuse.net)
