GOP Favorite In Nebraska Senate Race: Religious Belief Justifies Breaking Any Law
Source: The Raw Story
Republican “rising star” Ben Sasse is predicted to win the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Mike Johanns in November by a wide margin, as Nebraska is a solid red state. On his official campaign website, Sasse claims that he “believes that our right to the free exercise of religion is co-equal to our right to life. This is not a negotiable issue. Government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances. He will fight for the right of all Americans to act in accordance with their conscience.”
As ThinkProgress’s Ian Millhiser and Josh Israel note, Sasse’s statement could allude to the upcoming Supreme Court decision as to whether Hobby Lobby can violate federal law if that law is not in accordance with the beliefs of its principle owners — a decision which the adamantly pro-life and virulently anti-Affordable Care Act candidate Sasse agrees. “Uncle Sam is in the abortion business for the first time in 41 years,” he wrote on Facebook. “It’s important to remind our neighbors of the urgency of standing up for the most vulnerable.”
Sasse’s belief that the government cannot compel a citizen to behave in a manner contrary to his or her religious beliefs “under any circumstances” goes even further. As Millhiser and Israel write, “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.” The effects of Sasse’s interpretation of the law would not be limited to birth control and honor-killings. “Under Sasse’s preferred rule,” Millhiser and Israel write, “a person who believes that they violate their religious beliefs if they are late to church could ignore the speed limit, traffic lights, and stop signs if obeying traffic laws would cause them to miss just one minute of their church’s Sunday service.”
Sasse also believes that the right to exercise lethal force to protect family and property “pre-dates Government”: “The Second Amendment affirms the rights of Americans to protect their families and property. This right pre-dates Government and is inviolable.”
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/14/gop-favorite-in-nebraska-senate-race-claims-religious-belief-justifies-breaking-any-law/
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sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)Fuckin' fundies make my head hurt with their idiotic blather.
Xyzse
(8,217 posts)It is disgusting... Then they will go off saying, only Catholic based faiths.
Then, I'm like, go back far enough it is all the same.
Basically, they just want to enforce their own definition, and that is whatever benefits them the most.
Jerks.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)only Catholic based faiths.
I think Evangelicals are the ones that run the moral police in most cases. Anyway I am just shocked they have coronated this guy already. Even in California, the Democrats have to at least work some to keep the seats. This is gross that the Republicans don't even have to work for the seat at all.
kiranon
(1,727 posts)this Sharia like candidate.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)The problem with the theory that an individual's religious "laws" or beliefs trump the community's secular laws is that some individuals' religious laws infringe on the rights of others.
If laws prohibiting smoking marijuana or using peyote (as in the Smith decision by Scalia) are not nullified by the individual's religious beliefs, then how in the world can other laws be nullified by religious belief?. Of all the laws on our books, those prohibiting drug use are quite unlikely to infringe on the rights of others, let's say not to use drugs or to be free from a society in which drugs are used. The right to deny to women the freedom to choose whether to carry a fetus to term is far more problematic than the right to smoke marijuana or use peyote.
I think you have to be willing to accept a lot of inconsistencies and a lot of illogical views if you are a Republican. This theory of religion trumping society's agreed laws just makes no sense at all in the real world.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)
RKP5637
(67,086 posts)yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)He doesn't even have to work to win the seat? What the heck is wrong with this picture?
onehandle
(51,122 posts)Women. Women. Women.
well said!
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)
msongs
(67,361 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)RKP5637
(67,086 posts)Misogynies, Racists or Homophobes." The way out is the door you came in, be gone!
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)I don't think Mister Sassy has thought this through.
onenote
(42,590 posts)I don't think you'd get very far with this approach. The short and sweet answer is that this issue was resolved by the First Amendment. Period.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)
basically he believes his religion gives him the right to break laws and kill people. Wow, that religion must be pretty darn evil.
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)the Koran says Muslims can freely kill any non-Muslim, and they may even be obliged to do so.
So if I am a Muslim I can just start shooting Christians and other non-Muslims?
Does he believe you have to be grandfathered or can I start my own religion after his belief becomes law?
Is All Must Serve A Simple Game taken? How about All Must Worship A Simple Game? I promise to be mostly non-violent, just don't test me!
Is there a Republican left that has a functioning brain? They want to become that which they hate...or is it jealousy?
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)point out this extremism?
Has anyone of them asked him to clarify his views?
AZ Mike
(468 posts)Does he support forced marriages?
Does he support polygamy?
Does he support stoning to death non-virgin brides?
Does he support human sacrifice?
Does he support the rule of thumb?
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Because he has just joined the government that was created by the Constitution, and he cites it as giving him the right to take the rights of others. They don't believe in rights for those who don't fit in their group at all.
When government is gone, all there is left to organize society is religion. It's been around longer than any government and has brought down governments by telling their followers it needs to go. It's always in the background, as the alternative to democracy. Theocracy is never about equality.
By his own definition, he supports all that you asked. Some book can be skimmed and give him jusification. I suspect he supports his 2A right to kill those who don't have the right religion or don't have any at all. The propaganda on this is finally bearing the fruit from the religious right that gained power during the Reagan administration.
Yes, we are in deep trouble.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)atheists, liberals, women, minorities, GLBT citizens, progressive Churches, law, decency, just anything you care to name. All brought to this Nation by a pack of crazed, frothing, fauz propaganda believing Tea Bagging Republican sociopaths. And yet, these are the same lunatics the DC DEMS bend over and "compromise" with at every turn, driving the Nation to the brink of a far rightwing civil war. Nightmarish!
All IMHO
RKP5637
(67,086 posts)There are millions upon millions of Americans fed up with the crazies, but yet TPTB still cater to their nonsense.
AceAcme
(93 posts)
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broadcaster75201
(387 posts)nt
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Well, isn't that what the idiot meant? Freedom for all religions?
Ohhhhh....I get it now.
Dustlawyer
(10,494 posts)
Baitball Blogger
(46,684 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)
eppur_se_muova
(36,247 posts)Go ahead, break any laws you want. Then see how much the sheriff cares about your religious beliefs.
rtracey
(2,062 posts)Ok then.... picture this.... man enters banks with Jesus Mask, or in Jesus period clothing.... "I am robbing you in the name of Jesus"... and if the guy offers to give 10% to the church...LEGAL.......ok why have courts and jails.... I think I'll drive around Nebraska.... may take a little longer, but......
Dems2002
(509 posts)I really love Kierkegaard's discussion of ethics versus religion in Fear and Trembling which examines the decision made by Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac because God told him to do so. I read it years ago and it has stayed with me ever since.
"Ethics are for the good of the many, and they transcend an individual’s personal aesthetic concerns, but Abraham recognizes that his personal relationship to God transcends his social commitment to ethics. If Abraham had desired to kill Isaac, this would have been both immoral and irreligious. However, Abraham doesn’t decide to kill Isaac for personal aesthetic reasons or for social ethical reasons. Abraham decides to kill Isaac because of Abraham’s personal faith that God will not actually allow Isaac to die."
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/kierkegaard/section2.rhtml
Now, in one of the retellings, Abraham actually kills Isaac and so he has to stand trial for Isaac's murder because the ethics of his decision to follow God and kill his son are not defensible to the state, which has created laws to prevent people from murder. In this retelling, Abraham understands that he should be punished by man because he broke man's law and he is perfectly fine with taking this punishment.
This is what I wish modern day conservatives could grasp.
GeorgeGist
(25,311 posts)DRIVEL!
lostincalifornia
(3,639 posts)Evar
(44 posts)Back when the Republicans had good sense, Senator Barry Goldwater said, "The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom.... I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are?... I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."
Mike Daniels
(5,842 posts)Why do I have the feeling his commitment on this issue is pretty flexible depending on whether your beliefs line up with his?
EEO
(1,620 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)2nd Amendment pre - dates government ... so does every single thing that we now consider unlawful, including the undocumented crossing of "borders".
AleksS
(1,665 posts)Heck, that "XXX pre-dates government" argument has got to be the weakest argument ever.
Life pre-government SUCKED. Government was created to decrease the suckiness. The fact that this ignorant zealot will likely be in government soon, even though he apparently never passed a high school civics class, scares the daylights out of me.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)It is what underlies our Constitution.
Remember this:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
Nothing in there about religion trumping law, but the basis for law is the consent of the people and a recognition of the natural law that we are equal and have the right to join together to govern our society together. Unwritten is the rule of democracy, but if we are all equal and entitled to freedom yet want to live in a society that is orderly, democracy is how we will be governed.
DallasNE
(7,402 posts)To an even greater degree than Peter Kiewit used to control it.
Now only is Joe's goofy son Pete the candidate for Governor and Sasse his pick for this Senate seat but Joe Ricketts hand-picked candidates hold the other Senate Seat (Deb Fischer) and also the Omaha Mayor. They are all in the mode shown by Sasse.
Pakid
(478 posts)and since Hobby Lobby is so religious than they should follow the bible and have Sunday as a day of rest for there worker. Silly me as if Hobby Lobby gives a damn about there worker it all about control!
fifthoffive
(382 posts)They are closed on Sunday.
rickyhall
(4,889 posts)I should be able to do that, right?
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts) 
sdfernando
(4,925 posts)and proscribes frequent public orgies then I won't be arrested?......sweet!
I don't think these idiots think through anything!
MisterP
(23,730 posts)
UpInArms
(51,280 posts)cuckoo!
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)
tanyev
(42,516 posts)But It's Only OK If You're A Christian, I'll wager.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)It's OK If You're A Conservative Right Wing Christian Nutjob
mike_c
(36,269 posts)Somehow, I don't think he'll get very far with that.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)seems he like to mix and match laws....
BlueStater
(7,596 posts)Where the fuck do they keep finding these assclowns?
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Sharlet's expose' "THE FAMILY: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" (Harper Collins), I read that this shadowy, far rightwing, pseudo-religious Cult, hosts the Presidents Prayer Breakfast, and owns DC's "Frathouse for Jesus" (a Church/boarding house for Congressmen D & R alike). One goal is to "raise up a generation of Christ warriros who will deny the enemies of God liberty," and "work with power where we can find it, and build power everywhere else."
LoisB
(7,184 posts)
Moostache
(9,895 posts)Hobby Lobby and the Christos-fascists can exempt themselves from the ACA requirements just as soon as they write a check to every single American who was opposed to the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and occupations. The caveat to this is that I get to personally waterboard the owners first.
They don't want their taxes to fund death?
BULLSHIT!
They just want MY taxes (and yours as well) to fund their death and torture campaigns.
Well, kiss my ass. This is still a nation of laws (sort of...its laws unless you are poor, then its a casino)... they can either abide by the law or they can rot in prison. Close your stores, cut off your nose to spite your face, but accept this reality - as long as the law is enacted and valid under the Constitution, you will be accountable to it.
Bohemianwriter
(978 posts)Start with politicians who claims religious "freedom" trumps rule of Law and other people's right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)This guy is a fucking loony.
RKP5637
(67,086 posts)freedom.
Heywood J
(2,515 posts)How many should we sacrifice to Cthulhu today?
hatrack
(59,578 posts)Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!!!!
Marthe48
(16,904 posts)Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" Matthew 22:21
It was explained to me that this Biblical quote means that you obey earthly laws (Caesar) and you obey moral laws (God) They are separate, but deserve the same respect. Anyone who thinks that ignoring secular laws is a faith requirement has his head up his rear-end and needs to go back to Bible school. We cannot survive as a civilization if everyone becomes outlaws. We are already in big trouble because of religion-based terrorism, no matter what faith the terrorists are desecrating.
treestar
(82,383 posts)