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Every day it grows increasingly apparent that the Left is bent on destroying anything that fails to align perfectly with its ideology. A central target of its efforts to transform America remains the once-sacrosanct issue of religious freedom.
For years, leftists have done everything in their power to destroy this fundamental freedom, attempting to force Americans to choose between the practice of their faith and participation in public life. The so-called Respect for Marriage Act is the latest example.
Last week, the politically timed and maliciously motivated Respect for Marriage Act passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of 61-36, with 12 Republicans shamefully voting with Democrats in favor of it. The act purports to defend same-sex and interracial marriages, yet neither institution is under attack, and the act adds zero new protections for same-sex marriages that the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges didn't already provide. The legislation's real effect, in addition to repealing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, will be to expose people of faith to a host of potential lawsuits from left-wing activists seeking to silence their voices. That seems to be the point.
The act has, at best, feeble and toothless protections for religious freedom and conscience rights. Senators Susan Collins and Tammy Baldwin included an amendment that was advertised as preserving existing protections for people of faith, but which New York's Timothy Cardinal Dolan aptly said "fails even in that meager goal." Other religious leaders around the country quickly sounded the alarm, warning that despite the act's paltry "protections" for religious freedom, it could still open the door to potential lawsuits or the revocation of the tax-exempt status of countless religious organizations like churches, charities, orphanages or religious colleges.
You'd think that adding staunch religious liberty protections would be a no brainer—after all, the bill is just about protecting same-sex couples, right? Well, of course not.
Tellingly, the drafters of this legislation scoffed at Senator Mike Lee's proposed religious freedom amendment, which sought to address religious freedom concerns raised by the act. The amendment would have protected religious Americans, organizations, nonprofits, and other organizations seeking to live out their religious beliefs in the public square free from discrimination. Sadly, the Senate chose not to include it in the final bill. Not only that—the bill's supporters continued to assert that religious Americans had nothing to fear from the legislation, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Left-wing activists have spent the past several months ramping up attacks on conservative religious points of view that fail to conform to their own. Violent, disgusting attacks on pro-life organizations and churches have been met with silence and even been implicitly encouraged by Democrats while the Department of Justice has relentlessly pursued pro-life advocates for praying outside abortion clinics. The Department of Health and Human Services, meanwhile, is actively fighting to exclude people of faith from the health care industry and prosecuting nuns for not offering contraceptives in their health care plans. Wedding cake bakers, web designers, and others simply trying to make a living are being offered an ultimatum: compromise on your beliefs or abandon your livelihood.
Religious Americans should be skeptical of the prevailing narratives on this issue, especially when there's every indication that the Respect for Marriage Act is yet another attempt to harass, intimidate, and silence people of faith. The rejection of Sen. Lee's amendment in the Senate ought to serve as further confirmation of this truth.
Protecting religious freedom was once noncontroversial. Yet thanks to the passage of this radical legislation, and the failure of Sen. Lee's amendment, Americans are left unprotected and exposed to a political weapon veiled as a pro-marriage act, and the caprices of a government that is already engaged in persecuting them.
Brian Burch is president of CatholicVote.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
