1/ In his speech today, AG Sessions said; "Let us be frank. A dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom. There can be no doubt."
Let us be frank: This is unadulterated nonsense.
Let us be frank: This is unadulterated nonsense.
2/ There's no such "movement," undetected or otherwise. And I say that as someone who proudly worked for many years in DOJ to protect religious liberty. The AG's speech is dishonest (or at best sincere but mistaken) in several respects.
3/ Take, for example, his opening parade of horribles: "We have gotten to the point where courts have held that morality cannot be a basis for law; where ministers are fearful to affirm, as they understand it, holy writ from the pulpit; and ...
4/ "... and where one group can actively target religious groups by labeling them a 'hate group' on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs." (i) Courts haven't said that morality can't be "a" basis for law. They've simply said that morality ...
5/ ... can't be the *sole* basis for criminalizing sodomy. (ii) No law remotely prevents ministers from affirming "holy writ" from the pulpit. (Sessions is obviously referring to the law that tells churches, along with *all* nonprofits, that ...
6/ ... that contributions to them are tax-deductible only if the organization doesn't advocate for candidates.) And (iii) I've no idea what it even means to say that one group can "target" another (with what?) by labeling it a "hate group" on the basis of its religious beliefs.
7/ Oh, and there's this, too: "We’ve seen nuns ordered to buy contraceptives." No, we haven't. No nun has been ordered to buy a single contraceptive.
Full speech here:
justice.gov/opa/speech/att…
Full speech here:
justice.gov/opa/speech/att…
8/ Worth adding that this although Sessions insists that Trump "said he respected people of faith and he promised to protect them in the free exercise of their faith," this is the same POTUS whose travel ban was designed to overwhelmingly exclude nondangerous Muslims . . .
9/ ... and that would not have been issued but for Trump's campaign promises of a "Muslim ban."
balkin.blogspot.com/2018/07/contra…
balkin.blogspot.com/2018/07/contra…
6a/ Follow-up: Thanks to Rick Garnett and others, I now see that Sessions was referring to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alliance Defending Freedom. SPLC has a webpage describing ADF's agenda to defeat LGBT rights.
splcenter.org/fighting-hate/…
splcenter.org/fighting-hate/…
6b/ Far as I know (although I certainly haven't reviewed eery claim), the SPLC webpage accurately describes ADF. But then it also appends the tag "SPLC-designated Hate Group" on the side of the page. This is, IMHO, an unfortunate and unwise mistake.
6c/ It's completely fair for SPLC to sharply criticize ADF on the merits of its activities and its anti-LGBT speech. But adding the label "SPLC-designated Hate Group" doesn't add any information of value, and unnecessarily inflames by implied analogy to other, more odious groups.
6d/ Nonetheless, this is merely a case of one private group using particular labels to characterize another. Contrary to the AG, it's not based on ADF's "beliefs," but on its (very effective) litigation and its advocacy about LGBT persons. And, of most relevance here, ...
6e/ ... it doesn't diminish ADF's or its members' exercise of religion--certainly not in any sense that matters under the laws enforced by DOJ--because, well, it's merely one private party characterizing another harshly, something that happens 1000 times a day, incl. on twitter.
