Maddow: This Week in God, 5.17.14 -- Nebraska GOP Edition

[Algernon Moncrieff]

In Nebraska this week, Ben Sasse won his Republican primary with relative ease and is the clear favorite to replace retiring Sen. Mike Johanns (R). But in the meantime, Ian Millhiser and Josh Israel noted that Sasse takes a rather expansive view when it comes to the First Amendment.

“Ben Sasse believes that our right to the free exercise of religion is co-equal to our right to life,” the candidate’s campaign materials explain. “This is not a negotiable issue. Government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances.”

It’s that last part that’s written so broadly as to be problematic.

His proposed rule – that government cannot require someone to act counter to their religious beliefs “under any circumstances” – would mean that literally any law could be ignored by someone who held a religious belief counter to that law. According to National Geographic, for example, “[h]undreds, if not thousands, of women are murdered by their families each year in the name of family ‘honor,’” and while this practice “goes across cultures and across religions,” some of the perpetrators of honor killings are motivated by their religious faith. Under Sasse’s formulation of religious liberty, a person who killed his own sister because he believed he was under a religious obligation to do so would be immune from prosecution for murder.

Similarly, religious beliefs have been used to justify discrimination against racial minorities, women, and LGBT Americans at different points in American history.

It’s easy to imagine circumstances in which, under Sasse’s model, Americans would be justified in ignoring all kinds of laws. Most of the current political debates relate to issues such as anti-discrimination laws and contraception access, but if “government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances,” it would necessarily open a dangerous legal door.

Complete article at link

Don't like what you see about would-be Senator ben Sasse? Find out more about Dave Domina

[AceAcme]

1. Gawde has co-man-dead me to kick this OP