This is neither a debate or even really an opinion questions. I’m asking about the source of an idea I keep running into from some super conservatives who are against Obama.
Recently, I’ve seen the following posts online and I have no idea where these ideas come from.
I also met and old friend from college. I asked him where he attends church currently. He said, “In my home with others. If things continue the way they do…that might be where we have to meet in the future!”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
Where did this idea that religious liberties have been reduced, or even changed one bit, come from?
Oh, if this does have to be moved or something, it’s cool. I would prefer not to have some kind of debate in this thread, though; I just honestly want to know the source of the idea that liberties have changed over the last 4 years.
Is that the source of all the silliness I keep hearing, then? That’s a fairly odd thing to extrapolate out to massive loss of religious freedoms…that could push Christians into homes for “secret church”.
But at least one legal analyst, Alan C. Weinstein is the director of the Law & Public Policy Program at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in Cleveland, noted that if he was having the same number of people over to his home to watch sports on tv then it would have not been a problem.
How this has anything to do with Obama is a bit of a mystery but some would see it as a restriction on activity because of the religious nature of the activity.
Under the Obama administration, the government is doing more to stop religious groups from imposing their morality on the rest of the population that doesn’t want or need it.
To them, not being allowed to tell others what to do with their genitals is the same as throwing them in gulag.
I don’t know if a GQ answer is possible. However, broadly speaking, when I have heard challenges to religious people espousing this viewpoint, they have tended to refer to things like:
1/ moves towards secularisation of cultural icons (like referring to the late December holidays using secular language, instead of as “Christmas” or similar for example)
2/ removal of religious symbols from government (like requiring the ten commandments to be removed from a courthouse)
3/ use of anti-discrimination law against people or institutions who refuse to provide products or services on religious grounds
4/ passing of laws with broad application which clash with certain religious belief (like the compulsory heath insurance issue given above).
Whether this sort of thing is actually a trend that justifies the fears alluded to in the OP is a GD question.
I think there is a slow move towards secularisation of at least some parts of the public sphere in many western countries. The perception that this will be compulsorily extended into suppression of private or personal religion is probably unsupported.
Thing is, even up to the last one if we count the specific case of the health insurance mandate as just one instance of a general trend, every one of those phenomena antedates the Obama administration, heck, they antedate the Clinton administration. The OP’s friend is buying into a Jack Chick/“Left Behind” type of Endtimes fearmongering, even as the political and social leadership becomes if anything even more ostensibly pious.
Could be related to the conviction that Obama is going to take away everyone’s guns.
It helps people feel like they are part of something meaningful and noble, and larger than themselves, if they believe they are persecuted. Any scrap of evidence even if imaginary or tangential is marshaled toward this goal.
But you know? People who feel that their religious beliefs are held in contempt by the educated sophisticated elites who seem to hold the power in this country? Perhaps they aren’t completely wrong.
Based on the religious people I know on the Internet (I know a lot; mostly family members) this seems to be 100% about the contraception coverage in the ACA. Requiring religious organizations with secular employees to include contraceptive coverage in the insurance plans they were already offering these employees apparently constitutes the destruction of religious liberty in the United States.
Sure, but that is a symptom, nor a cause. The paranoid talk on the American right about Christians becoming a persecuted minority in America was widespread long before that, and, indeed, long before Obama became president.
You would be very hard pressed to find a Catholic in any of the many other countries whose health care systems make contraception available, who believes that that provision constitutes an attack on their religion. (Well, maybe a handful in Ireland.)
I tend to agree, although I think most of those systems are provided directly by government, rather than through employers. So there is no opportunity in those countries for employers with religious leanings to get their knickers in a twist about having health plans that cover contraception.
It sounds like people are trying to find conspiracies associated with Obama in order to fulfill their own conservative political agenda.
I’ve also heard people say that since Obama is black, he can’t be a good leader.
That he’s a communist without fully understanding what the term actually means (just because someone wears red does not make them a communist).
That he’s the anti-Christ.
Get the picture?
[sarcasm]
Oh, and of course Romney will save us! We have no clue what he’s going to do, but we need to trust him.
