[BREITBART] A panel discussion sponsored by John Podesta's Center for American Progress (CAP)
| ...and who would know more about religious hatred than the Center for American Progress... |
on Thursday came to the conclusion that Christian conservatives use religion as a justification for their discriminatory behavior. Americans, they argue, will never enjoy full religious freedom until Christians' claims for religious liberty are defeated.
| I'm sure that made a lot more sense in the original Gobbledygook. |
According to Joel Gehrke at the Washington Examiner, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the George Soros-funded Interfaith Alliance, said, "People [are] using the term 'liberty' when they really mean 'my liberty, your slavery.''
Gaddy argued that the left's view of religious liberty comes from an originalist reading of the Constitution that was universally understood in the early days of the nation. He said that, unfortunately, the American people have become "confused" and misled about the issue of religious liberty by the United States Catholic bishops.
| Are those the bad bishops who oppose abortion or the good bishops who oppose the death penalty? |
"You have the Catholic bishops advocating for 'religious freedom,' which doesn't look anything like what religious freedom is in the Constitution," Gaddy said. "Unless we do those kind of dramatic actions [such as the ACLU suing the USCCB] in order to get us back to what the foundation of religious freedom has been all the time, it's going to get worse and worse, with people using the term 'liberty' when they really mean 'my liberty, your slavery.'"
"See, I grew up in a part of the country where we really believed in religious liberty but we really enforced bondage on everyone else, and it was because we were Christians and we had the Bible," Gaddy said.
Similarly, ACLU senior counsel Eunice Rho continued the narrative that religious beliefs work to justify discriminatory behavior. Rho denounced attempts to pass a Religious Freedom Restoration Act in various states.
"These are very dangerous because they can allow religion to be used to harm others," Rho said.
| Sorta like how Global Warming is being used to harm others... |
Gaddy likened Christian florists who refuse to provide services to gay weddings due to religious beliefs to employers who would post "whites only" signs in their storefronts.
"I don't think we don't want to go down that road again," Gaddy said, and later agreed with another panel participant who said that liberals "need to start educating, and calling out, Christians for trying to exercise 'Christian privilege.'" |