“The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious
freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain
code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia,
Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.” -- Those were the word uttered by one Mr. Castro.
Not Fidel.
Rather, one Martin Castro, the chairman of the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights, who launched a broadside recently against
religious faith, degrading the vision of the Founding Fathers that made
this country the envy of the world.
Castro, an Obama appointee, released a report
on September 7 on protections against discrimination. His finding, in
part, is that Americans need to be protected from Bible-thumpers, and
anyone else whose beliefs run afoul of the administration’s PC police.
Religious folk need not apply.
in the report Castro cited John Adams. “The
government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the
Christian religion.” But Adams did not write those words.
They were part of a treaty to end the Barbary War. “Christian” ships
and crew were fair game for Barbary pirates, Ambassador Abdrahaman of
Tripoli told Thomas Jefferson; that all Christians are sinners in the
context of the Koran and that it was a Muslim's "right and duty to make
war upon them wherever they could be found, and to enslave as many as
they could take as prisoners.”
U.S. negotiators tried to downplay the clash of
religions. The treaty therefore stressed that the U.S. was not an
officially Christian nation, but a secular one, and therefore should
never have been targeted. Adams signed the treaty, but it had nothing to
do with his belief about the importance of Judeo-Christian religions to
the stability of society.
Here are the words that flowed from President Adams’ pen. “We
have no government armed with power capable of contending with human
passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was
made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to
the government of any other."
George Washington expressed similar thoughts in his Farewell Address. “Of
all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man
claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these
great pillars of human happiness.”
Our Founding Fathers would have cautioned against attempts to “subvert these great pillars” of religion and morality.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French
historian and admirer of American democracy, introduced the Continent to
the workings of the American upstarts. “The Americans combine the
notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds that it is
impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.”
Waves of immigrants after de Tocqueville were often
far less lettered, but they did share his understanding, and dreamt of
being part of it. Religious freedom, toleration and fairness were all
intertwined in the unique American package that so many desperately seek
to be a part of.
Commissioner Castro has another vision. In the letter
addressed to the president, the vice president, and the Speaker of the
House, he wrote, “Religious exemptions to the protections of civil
rights based upon classifications such as race, color, national origin,
sex, disability status, sexual orientation, and gender identity, when
they are permissible, significantly infringe upon these civil rights.”
What he is saying is that in 2016 it’s Big Brother’s responsibility to
curtail those exemptions. If that isn’t to your liking, you can always
move. Maybe to Tripoli.
Castro’s America would not be recognized by James Madison,
who argued that religious conviction ought to be placed ahead of – not
behind – the agenda of the State. In his "Memorial and Remonstrance
against Religious Assessments of 1785," the architect of our
Constitution wrote: “It is the duty of every man to render to the
Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to
Him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and degree of
obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”
Not so long ago, America projected its global power
to protect religious freedoms. Throughout the Cold War we strove to help
brave believers behind the Iron Curtain to keep the embers of religion
from being totally extinguished by atheistic Communist dictatorships.
We demanded of our chief international nemesis, the
USSR, that any negotiations on nuclear arms reduction must be linked to
human rights—including freedom of religion.
Eventually, Gorbachev relented, the Berlin Wall came down, and the war against religion came to an end.
Recent U.S. administrations were true to the legacy
of our Founders by taking a leadership role in urging all governments to
guarantee the religious rights of minorities who, when leaving their
respective houses of worship on their holy days, could return to their
homes unmolested.
Today, hundreds of millions of minority Baha’i,
Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims – but chiefly Christians – have no confidence
that American power or policy have their backs.
Respect for religion and religious values were at the
core of our Founding Fathers’ vision and an inspiration to endangered
religious people the world over. We can only hope that the next head of
America’s Civil Rights Commission will protect -- not slander -- people
who dare set their moral compass by the words of G-d.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Follow the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Facebook and on Twitter.
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein is Director of Interfaith Affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
FoxNews.com
Topic: Team Obama launches a shocking broadside against religious faith
