The Trump Administration has fought a sometimes uphill battle to put religious freedom on equal footing with secular rights, and either of the two Democratic Party frontrunners for president would undo those gains.
During the Obama years, the trending politics was to expand the equal rights achieved by the LGBTQ and make them superior to people of faith. The Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission was the tip of the spear for secular policymaking. It pitted a Christian baker who respectfully declined to make a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage based on his constitutionally-guaranteed religious liberties. But the secular Democrats in the Rocky Mountain state would have none of it. The state’s Civil Rights Commission took the widely-held Obama Administration position that gay rights rank above Christian values. The agency insisted with force of law behind them that the bakery make cakes for gay weddings or be effectively shuttered. In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the baker that his religious freedom was protected.
But even a cursory analysis shows this decision could easily have gone against the baker and set a precedent subverting Christian rights for decades to come. Had Obama seated liberal extremist Merrick Garland and Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election, the high court would have been rife with secular rights advocates. The efforts of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to deny Garland a seat and the election of President Donald Trump to the White House saved religious freedom in America. Now, those rights would be upended if either Obama-era number two Joe Biden or Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders ascended to the Oval Office.
In recent interviews on the campaign trail, Biden has gone on the record stating unequivocally that he will immediately begin dismantling the Trump Administration’s policies to maintain religious rights. Among his first targets will be erasing the Trump Administration rule that allows faith-based adoptions.
“As President, Biden will repeal the rule,” Biden’s proposal states.
During the Biden-Obama administration, a rule was implemented that elevated LGBTQ adoptions while banning faith-based adoptions. People with religious convictions were rendered second-class citizens. Not only did the previous administration deny Christians from adopting, but they also cut off a pathway to a family environment for upwards of 100,000 children in foster care.
And although Sanders likes to hold out his Jewish heritage as a way of balancing his public persona, the reality is that Sanders has not effectively supported Israel, and favors the rights of secular people over others. Sanders has gone on the record saying he “is not actively involved with organized religion.” And, he spews out secular humanist speeches designed to straddle the fence.
“To me, it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together,” Sanders reportedly said. But he often tips his hand that he favors same-sex rights over Christians when going off-script.
“It goes without saying that my views on many issues — women’s rights, gay rights, education, and many other issues — are very different from the opinions of some in the Liberty University community,” Sanders reportedly said.
Now we have an Obama-era flunky and an atheist hiding behind Jewish heritage. It’s easy to see that if we scrolled back the clock and Obama seated Garland on the high court and Hillary selected a supreme court justice, religious rights would be dead in the water. If either Bernie of Biden reaches the White House, there will be an all-out assault on religious freedom in this country.
