Attack On First Amendment

For John, BLUF:  One of the things that has made America great has been the willingness to tolerate divergent, even stupid, ideas.  We seem to be moving away from that.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Democrats Are Going to Regret Beto’s Stance on Conservative Churches

Here is the sub-headline:

The candidate seems not to realize that eliminating tax exemptions for certain religious institutions would be catastrophic.

From The Atlantic, by Professor John Inazu (Professor of law and religion at Washington University in St. Louis), 12 October 2019.

Here is the lede plus five:

The issue of gay rights and recognition and acceptance of the LGBTQ community has moved at warp speed—in political terms anyway—this past decade.

“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman.  I am not in favor of gay marriage,” said the candidate Barack Obama in 2008.

At Thursday night’s nationally televised forum on LGBTQ rights, candidate Beto O’Rourke showed how far, and how quickly, the Democratic Party has moved.  The former Texas congressman caused quite a stir when he said he would support revoking the tax-exempt status of religious institutions—colleges, churches, and charities—if they opposed same-sex marriage.

Though his swift “yes” in response to the CNN moderator Don Lemon’s question received an enthusiastic response from the Los Angeles audience, much of America—including those blue-hued states—might see troubling ramifications of this that go well beyond O’Rourke’s applause line.

The candidate’s view isn’t entirely new to Democrats.  It echoes, for example, then–Solicitor General Donald Verrilli’s concession during his oral argument in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 that the tax-exempt status of Christian colleges and universities who hold traditional views of marriage was “going to be an issue.”  And it aligns with the Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet’s policy recommendation to take a “hard line” with religious conservatives because, after all, “trying to be nice to the losers didn’t work well after the Civil War,” and “taking a hard line seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after 1945.”

. . .

But more troubling than the rhetoric is where it leads. And for that, let me offer three suggestions to people with skill sets I lack: one for pollsters, one for journalists, and one for policy analysts.

First, I would like to mention the aftermath of the American Civil War.  Harvard Professor Tushnet may think that the people of the South could be easily cowed, and cheaply, but that is not obvious to me, Germany and Japan notwithstanding.  There are examples of where repression did not garner obedience, including several Latin American nations, a chunk of Africa, the Middle East, Burma, Tibet and modern day Spain, where the rebellion goes on.  Guerrilla Warfare across the South, and into the Great Plains, would have been very ugly.  Professor Tushnet gave us a flip comment on a subject outside his area of expertise.

With regard to the three issues raised by Professor Inazu, the second stands out to me.  Here is what he writes:

Second, journalists should ask O’Rourke and every other Democratic candidate how this policy position would affect conservative black churches, mosques and other Islamic organizations, and orthodox Jewish communities, among others.  It is difficult to understand how Democratic candidates can be “for” these communities—advocating tolerance along the way—if they are actively lobbying to put them out of business.

Here is the nub of the problem.  There are various minority groups, with various minority opinions.  How do we make them all part of America.  We have accommodated the Amish and the Mormons.  We have learned to live with Catholics and Jews.  Today we are making space for Muslims and Buddhists.  But, it won't work out well if we are intolerant of all ideas with which we don't agree.  How do Democrats rationalize this.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff