"No American should have to choose between faith and the law."

[mahatmakanejeeves]

“No American should have to choose between faith and the law”?

So in deciding whether to honor our nation’s secular Constitution & heritage honoring the Rule of Law or theocratic, Sharia-style Law, the White House supports Christian Sharia Law? Good to know. #ReligiousFreedom

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A commitment to religious freedom has guided the Administration throughout its first year in office. No American should have to choose between faith and the law.

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No American Should Have to Choose Between Faith and the Law

January 16, 2018 3 minute read

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Tuesday, January 16, 2018, marks America’s celebration of National Religious Freedom Day. President Donald J. Trump made the observance official in a signed proclamation this week.

Religious freedom has shaped the history of the United States since our forefathers sought refuge from religious persecution. Federal recognition of Religious Freedom Day began with President George H. W. Bush in 1993, and presidents have generally signed a new proclamation every year since.

January 16 is the anniversary of the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom’s passage. Considered one of the foundational texts of a young America, the document outlined what principles constituted true respect by a government for freedom of religion. “All men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities,” wrote its author, Thomas Jefferson.

The Virginia statute served as a model in many ways for the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which followed a few years later with its familiar words, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

In that spirit, Religious Freedom Day is a moment to celebrate and fight to protect religious freedom in America and around the world. “We will continue to condemn and combat extremism, terrorism, and violence against people of faith, including genocide waged by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria against Yezidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims,” President Trump writes in this year’s proclamation.

From the replies at the White House Twitter feed:

Replying to @IbWizard @WhiteHouse
The basis of our laws are from the Ten Commandments

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Replying to @BKelnhofer @IbWizard @WhiteHouse
No, they’re from the constitution.

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Replying to @pkzcass @IbWizard @WhiteHouse
Where do you think the Constitution got thou shalt not kill, steal, lie, etc.?

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Replying to @BKelnhofer @pkzcass and 2 others
They got it from human decency. I don’t need the bible nor commandments to tell me not to kill or steal

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Replying to @JaDyWaDy2009 @pkzcass and 2 others
And where did your decency come from? Your parents and their parents and so on? Use logic it helps

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Replying to @BKelnhofer @pkzcass and 2 others
Right. It came from being a decent human. Not a fable

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Replying to @JaDyWaDy2009 @pkzcass and 2 others
What’s a fable

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Replying to @BKelnhofer @JaDyWaDy2009 and 2 others
Use a dictionary, it helps.

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Replying to @pkzcass @JaDyWaDy2009 and 2 others
For what

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[lastlib]

1. SIX of the ten Commandments are SPECIFICALLY religious in character.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." "Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy." "Thou shalt not worship any graven image." "Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain...." (You get the idea....)

[Siwsan]

2. And things just keep getting scarier and scarier

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. As long as we're bringing Jefferson into this: Thomas Jefferson detested Patrick Henry.

DU, 2012: I've heard that Thomas Jefferson detested Patrick Henry.

Not that that's the gold standard. Anyway:

For Religious Freedom Day: What Jefferson Really Thought of Theocrat Patrick Henry

For Religious Freedom Day: What Jefferson Really Thought of Theocrat Patrick Henry
Categories: Uncategorized
by Chris Rodda

So, today {January 16} is Religious Freedom Day, the anniversary of the passage of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. No, I’m not going to post Jefferson’s statute; I’m going to post something cooler than that — one of my favorite lines ever written by Jefferson.

The background: Jefferson drafted his religious freedom statute in 1777 and introduced it in 1779, but it didn’t go anywhere. It wasn’t until 1786 that Jefferson’s statute was passed. Jefferson was in France at the time, so it was Madison who reintroduced the religious freedom statute. This was right after James Madison defeated Patrick Henry’s bill to tax everybody in Virginia to support teachers of the Christian religion.

Jefferson couldn’t stand Patrick Henry and his theocratic agenda, and made this quite clear in one {of} his letters to Madison while Madison was battling Henry’s bill for a Christian religious tax. When Madison wrote to Jefferson asking what they should do about Henry, Jefferson replied:

“While Mr. Henry Lives another bad constitution would be formed, and saddled for ever on us. What we have to do I think is devoutly to pray for his death …”

Of course, the Christian nationalist history revisionists either ignore this line from Jefferson, or claim it is made up by evil secularists to impugn the character of our very Christian founding fathers.
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{This is} from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to James Madison on December 8, 1784, and can be found on pages 353-354 of The Republic Of Letters, The Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison 1776-1826, Volume I.

Patrick Henry was the first governor of Virginia, and Thomas Jefferson was the second. We really got off to a great start, didn't we?

[J_William_Ryan]

4. Ridiculous rightwing ignorance and idiocy.

“No American should have to choose between faith and the law.”

Clearly this conservative nonsense is in reference to state and local public accommodations laws with provisions for sexual orientation, and the lie that such laws ‘compel’ Christian business owners to ‘violate’ their religious beliefs by providing goods and services to gay and transgender patrons, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

Requiring citizens to obey just, proper, and Constitutional laws and measures – such as public accommodations laws – is perfectly consistent with settled, accepted Free Exercise Clause jurisprudence. (See, e.g., Employment Division v. Smith (1990)).