{"id":1768,"date":"2011-11-15T08:01:53","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T13:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/returntorome\/?p=1768"},"modified":"2015-03-13T13:28:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T17:28:27","slug":"progressive-politics-and-diminishing-religious-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2011\/11\/progressive-politics-and-diminishing-religious-liberty\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive Politics and Diminishing Religious Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Over at Public Discourse this morning, attorneys Jane Robbins and Emmett McGroarty have authored an eye-opening piece, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thepublicdiscourse.com\/2011\/11\/4258\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">\u201cMandating Our Religious Freedom.\u201d<\/a> Here\u2019s how it begins:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>People of faith must reclaim their religious freedom, granted by the Creator and protected by the Constitution.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Founders\u2019 protection of religious freedom in the First Amendment was in keeping with their recognition of the supreme importance of the individual, who was created by God and subject to God\u2019s natural law. The early twentieth-century Progressives largely rejected this view, as they concluded that man must not be limited by \u201carbitrary\u201d rules such as those imposed by religion. Modern progressives have seized upon this viewpoint, especially in their attitudes toward sex. The State will teach children about sex, and it will do so by disconnecting it from its most important component\u2014the spiritual. It does not matter that such teachings are, by nature, within the rights of parents.<\/p>\n<p>Progressives have carried these attitudes to federal, state, and local governments, and the result has been an unprecedented assault on religious values and religious practice. Governmental authorities embrace the view that access to contraception (and abortion) is a fundamental right vital to sexual freedom. Similarly, homosexual conduct must be completely normalized and accepted. The law must prohibit even private preference for heterosexual norms, and if religion teaches such a preference, religion must yield. These attitudes must be taught to children in the public schools in order to affirm, in the state\u2019s view, the full self-realization of every person\u2014and as shown below, parents who object to the assault on their right to bring up their children according to their religious values have discovered that the courts will not protect their rights in this regard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thepublicdiscourse.com\/2011\/11\/4258\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">&gt;&gt;&gt;continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over at Public Discourse this morning, attorneys Jane Robbins and Emmett McGroarty have authored an eye-opening piece, \u201cMandating Our Religious Freedom.\u201d Here\u2019s how it begins: People of faith must reclaim their religious freedom, granted by the Creator and protected by the Constitution. The Founders\u2019 protection of religious freedom in the First Amendment was in keeping [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,39,81],"tags":[222],"class_list":["post-1768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-culture","category-constitutional-law","category-law","tag-religious-liberty"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Progressive Politics and Diminishing Religious Liberty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over at Public Discourse this morning, attorneys Jane Robbins and Emmett McGroarty have authored an eye-opening piece, &quot;Mandating Our Religious Freedom.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2011\/11\/progressive-politics-and-diminishing-religious-liberty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Progressive Politics and Diminishing Religious Liberty\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over at Public Discourse this morning, attorneys Jane Robbins and Emmett McGroarty have authored an eye-opening piece, &quot;Mandating Our Religious Freedom.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2011\/11\/progressive-politics-and-diminishing-religious-liberty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Return to Rome\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-15T13:01:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-13T17:28:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Francis J. Beckwith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Francis J. 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