{"id":4295,"date":"2011-09-29T16:04:09","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T20:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/slacktivist\/?p=4295"},"modified":"2011-09-29T16:04:09","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T20:04:09","slug":"rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/","title":{"rendered":"Rights for me, but not for thee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

So says Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association<\/a>:<\/p>\n

My argument all along has been that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fischer\u2019s interpretation of the no-establishment clause of the First Amendment is that there is no<\/em> establishment clause in the First Amendment. He believes that \u201cthe Christian religion\u201d \u2014 that is, real, true Christianity according to his definition of it \u2014 is established, privileged and protected in a way that other religions are not. Rights for me but not for thee.<\/p>\n

This is a patently indefensible reading of what the First Amendment says about religious freedom: \u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.\u201d It\u2019s legal and logical nonsense.<\/p>\n

But significantly it\u2019s also bigoted and chauvinist nonsense, and an attempt to give Fischer\u2019s religious chauvinism the force of law.<\/p>\n

Fischer is scheduled to speak at next week\u2019s Values Voters Summit \u2014 a religious right carnival also featuring many of the current Republican candidates for president. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is scheduled to speak immediately before Fischer. Fischer does not count Mormons like Romney as members of the constitutionally privileged Christian religion. Says Fischer:<\/p>\n

Mormonism is not an orthodox Christian faith. It just is not. \u2026 And it was very clear that the Founding Fathers did not intend to preserve automatically religious liberty for non-Christian faiths.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s a helpful illustration of what follows when, like Fischer, you decide that one particular sect ought to be privileged with freedoms not enjoyed by other sects. The next, inevitable step is to start whittling down who is and isn\u2019t included as a fully orthodox member of the privileged sect, and then separating out the genuine from the insincere. As I wrote in an earlier post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

To privilege any one set of believers \u2026 requires \u2026 mechanisms to challenge and sort out the genuine believers from the mere pretenders claiming allegiance only in order to gain access to those privileges that accompany membership in the established sect. Such sorting mechanisms are never perfect \u2014 allowing many hypocritical posers to slip past while unjustly condemning many sincere and genuine believers. And such sorting mechanisms are never pretty. This is where inquisitions come from.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For more on Fischer, see People for the American Way\u2019s report: \u201cThe GOP\u2019s Favorite Hate-Monger: How the Republican Party Came to Embrace Bryan Fischer<\/a>.\u201d Or, if you\u2019ve a strong stomach, check out their video compilation of some of his greatest hits: \u201cFour Minutes of Hate: The Naked Bigotry of the AFA\u2019s Bryan Fischer<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The title of that report may strike some as an unfair accusation of guilt by association, but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s a perfectly fair<\/em> accusation of guilt by association. Fischer is guilty of saying horrifically hateful things and the Republican Party continues to choose to associate with him. Avoiding the accusation of guilt by association with a racist, chauvinist bigot like Bryan Fischer is simple: Don\u2019t associate with him.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So says Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association: My argument all along has been that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion. Fischer\u2019s interpretation of the no-establishment clause of the First Amendment is that there is no establishment clause in the First Amendment. He believes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,28],"class_list":["post-4295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-state","tag-religious-right"],"yoast_head":"\nRights for me, but not for thee<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So says Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association: My argument all along has been that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free\" \/>\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\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rights for me, but not for thee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So says Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association: My argument all along has been that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-29T20:04:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/\",\"name\":\"Rights for me, but not for thee\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-09-29T20:04:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-09-29T20:04:09+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/0173c85e46e7e0951fef5752bed78b6e\"},\"description\":\"So says Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association: My argument all along has been that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Rights for me, but not for thee\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/0173c85e46e7e0951fef5752bed78b6e\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e23731809f5a2c785d0416fc4211a51e?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e23731809f5a2c785d0416fc4211a51e?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rights for me, but not for thee","description":"So says Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association: My argument all along has been that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Rights for me, but not for thee","og_description":"So says Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association: My argument all along has been that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2011-09-29T20:04:09+00:00","author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/","name":"Rights for me, but not for thee","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-09-29T20:04:09+00:00","dateModified":"2011-09-29T20:04:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/0173c85e46e7e0951fef5752bed78b6e"},"description":"So says Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association: My argument all along has been that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/09\/29\/rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Rights for me, but not for thee"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/0173c85e46e7e0951fef5752bed78b6e","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e23731809f5a2c785d0416fc4211a51e?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e23731809f5a2c785d0416fc4211a51e?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}