Campaign against religious freedom: Orwellian? Demonic? Both?

Mocking freedom of religion, to weaken your commitment to it. (Image: 21alive Indianapolis)

A campaign against religious freedom – the central purpose for which America came into being – had been underway for some time before the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, the same-sex marriage case, on 26 June.  But the campaign went into overdrive with the news of that ruling, and it’s becoming increasingly furious and determined.

The principal method of the anti-freedom campaign is owning the terms in which it is discussed.  The anti-freedom contingent insists, in essence, that what traditionalist Christians want is not legitimate freedom, but a license to hurt people.

Fascist collectivism always makes its arguments in these terms, and the campaign against religious freedom is no different.  It picks a specific demographic target and vilifies the members of it, based on a garbled and inverted premise about social harm.

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Same-sex marriage: Supreme Court cries ‘Havoc!’

The law, as she is practiced in America.

It’s been a banner week for the opponents of reason and the rule of law.

It will also turn out to have been a banner week for the opponents of tolerance, which includes most of today’s political left.

The left has never been about tolerance.  It has always been about opposing what other people believe, as the left defines it – which may or may not even be what those other people actually believe.  The left is about opposing things: about setting up definitions that require either affirmation or enmity.

And it’s the tide of the left’s “affirmation or enmity” proposition that will quickly rise around us, now that the Supreme Court has declared that people have a “right” to have their specialized definition of marriage recognized by the state.

Little Sisters in Gulag Nation: “Just sign the form”

What an interesting moment we have arrived at with the Obamacare contraception mandate.  The Catholic order Little Sisters of the Poor requested, and on 31 December was granted, a restraining order against the federal government’s enforcement of the Obamacare contraception mandate.  Eric Holder’s Department of Justice has come back swinging, with a brief to the Supreme Court insisting that the Little Sisters – virtually alone among the religious organizations seeking relief from the mandate – be denied the injunction that now protects them from devastating IRS fines.

If you want to catch up fully on the Little Sisters’ case, start with the Becket Fund site here, which has links to court filings and other documentation.*

Liberty 101: Same-sex “marriage” and the power of bureaucracy

Americans today are getting a crash course in the liberty we give up when we create bureaucracies and let the executive branch grow without restraint.

Consider these points:

1.  The appeal for California’s Proposition 8 was thrown out because of an issue of standing for the defendants (i.e., the backers of Prop. 8 – who, it will be remembered, stepped in to continue the appeals process after the original backers dropped out).  The last ruling of the lower court is being allowed to stand, but the issue itself – the constitutionality of defining marriage in traditional terms – has not been ruled on by the Supreme Court.  The Court didn’t say that it’s unconstitutional for a government authority or the people themselves to define marriage in traditional terms.

2.  What was ruled on was the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).   And in spite of

Eyes on the ball, folks: SCOTUS has ruled Congress can make us buy stuff

A surprising number of conservative commentators have come out cheering the ObamaCare decision because it ruled that the Commerce clause in the Constitution – Congress’s power to regulate commerce across the 50 states – doesn’t empower our legislators to force us to buy things (in this case, health insurance).

Of course, Congress can require those who propose to engage in regulated activities to purchase things, as a price of doing business.  But ObamaCare forces us to buy insurance just because we woke up one day and were citizens of the United States (and earning a certain income and not covered by insurance our employers have to buy).

The real decision

SCOTUS has said Congress can do that.