Religion: A Civil Right?  May 31, 2013
 
 Ron Prentice, "Religion: A Civil Right?"
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/349630/religious-freedom-civil-rights-issue-kathryn-jean-lopez

Religious Freedom: A Civil-Rights Issue

By  Kathryn Jean Lopez  interviews Peter Kirsanow

Initially, there were two significant reasons for holding hearings on religious freedom: 1) A startling number of reports regarding alleged suppression of religious expression, as well as religious student groups being denied official recognition from universities unless the groups adhered to non-discrimination policies that conflicted with their religious beliefs and 2) The Supreme Court’s decision in Hosanna-Tabor regarding religious groups’ right to select their own ministers.

over the last few decades there’s been a creeping erosion of our religious freedoms. The United States is rapidly imitating Western Europe and becoming a more secular society. People with no religious affiliation are now approximately 16 percent of the U.S. population, and the percentage is higher among Millennials. ...

“As we’ve seen in Western Europe,” adds Kirsanow, “when a society loses ts faith it may not simply become apathetic toward religion, it may become actively hostile toward religion and religious believers.  That’s what we’re seeing with universities, with the HHS Mandate, and with the IRS investigations of pro-life organizations.  For many secularists, same-sex marriage, abortion, access to free contraception, etc., take priority over conflicting religious beliefs.”/In other words, the practice of dialogue in order to reach some common ground is proving futile, as political agendas are so severely divergent.  Instead, the movement now is to attempt to silence opponents through force of legislation and the courts.

"...I’ve never seen such alarm about governmental overreach during my twelve-year tenure on the Commission. For example, students expressed concerns about the antidiscrimination rules in place at some universities that prohibit religious groups from requiring their leaders to sign a statement of faith or adhere to certain moral codes. Bishop Paprocki wrote about the nondiscrimination requirements in the Illinois civil-union law that drove Catholic Charities out of the foster and adoption business. Alliance Defending Freedom submitted a comment that detailed many incidents where small businesses were penalized by the state for exercising their religious freedom. The examples were endless.....
 

The general decline of religiosity in Western society, including (but not limited to) church attendance and raising one’s children in a given religion, is perhaps a greater threat. There are, quite simply, fewer people vigilant against threats to religious freedom.

...cultural tastemakers persistently minimize or denigrate traditional religion, religious believers, and most especially traditional moral beliefs. The president is a tastemaker, and he, of course, infamously referred to people bitterly clinging to their guns and religion. Television shows and movies routinely portray traditional Christians and Jews as fanatics or loons. Even when not specifically addressing religion, popular culture simply sets a tone where certain behaviors antithetical to religious tenets are considered acceptable and unremarkable....

In short, unbalanced, blunderbuss “nondiscrimination” laws are a threat, but not more so than a larger cultural decay.... 

Political correctness has eroded, if not infantilized, our public discourse regarding freedom, equality, and tolerance....