Are the new U.S. AG's rules on Religious litigation making America a theocracy?
[inkandvoice.com]
you poor americans . you are the architects of your own demise. go satanists go . perhaps all atheists should become members !
Don't believe in Satan, so no converts here.
The bad news: what you're seeing today is really just the realization of a law that was passed way back in 1993 (originally authored by then-Congressman Chuck Schumer, a Democrat) and signed into law by Bill Clinton (also a Democrat) called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). It was a bad idea then and it's a bad idea now. Worse, the religious right and its nationalist allies in the White House are keen to dress up their various bigotries under the mantle of "religious freedom" and to appoint judges amenable to those sorts of arguments.
The surprising news: RFRA was passed to legislatively reverse a Supreme Court decision authored by Justice Antonin Scalia that held that "laws of general application" could not find an exception in the Free Exercise Clause. I'm usually on the left side of things and critical of a lot of conservative jurisprudence, but I think Justice Scalia got that case, Employment Division v. Smith, right. As badly as I felt for the plaintiffs in that case. This is just something that the Democrats back during the Clinton years never really thought through all the way.
The hopeful news: now that the full flower of that legislative language has borne fruit in the Hobby Lobby case and its progeny, Democrats (including now-Senator Schumer himself) are finding the desire to dial the language back.
The good news: Democrats appear poised to re-take the House of Representatives in the 2018 election and have an outside chance at re-taking the Senate as well.
FFRF just posted an item about how the judicial department is secretly trying to get more religious judges appointed. Another ominous sign.
I continue to note the word "religious". Do these people know that also means Satanists, Vodoo, Jewish, Moslem and on and on. Wait until these groups get equal rights with the Christians. It was posted that a proposed law affecting abortion rights is Alabama was being countered by a group of Satanists. This group has a strong stance.