You Will Believe What I Tell You To Believe

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof......

If you were to ask liberals which part of the Constitution they would like to remove first, this passage from the First Amendment would probably compete with the entire Second Amendment (the right of citizens to bear arms) for the top spot.  Our Founding Fathers thought freedom of religion (and the fear of state-imposed beliefs) was so important that they made those the very first words in the Bill of Rights.  And for hundreds of years, those words put the United States in a unique position of having religious harmony and diversity unseen in any other country--where often the Church and the State were one in the same--and differing beliefs led to second-class citizenry, expulsion or imprisonment.

But today, those words are seen an impairment to sameness of thought and action.  Under Federal law and in practice in now 29-states (the latest becoming Indiana--and including Wisconsin and Minnesota) the individual right to free exercise of religious beliefs is to be given the same weight as all other individual rights (including the right to Due Process contained in the 14th Amendment) in civil court matters.  The First Amendment right can only be superceded if it is a furtherance of compelling governmental interest and it is the least restrictive means of furthering that governmental interest.

So might I suggest that those opposed to the Federal law that has been on the books since 1993--and the state laws as well consider attacking the problem at the root: In the religion itself.  And the model for changing the beliefs of the Evangelical Christians and the Roman Catholic church can be found in the liberal infiltration of the public education system following World War II.  The Left's take over of schools started at the grassroots level with unionization of teachers, promotion of those teachers to positions of administration, greater political party involvement in local election of school boards and ultimately adoption of left-leaning curriculum to have great influence on everyone before they turn 18 and can vote.

So why don't Liberals take the same approach to changing Fundamentalist religions?  Get men to give up sex and marriage to become priests or join the ministry.  Innundate the pool of potential Bishops and Vicars so that promotion of your "operatives" becomes more likely.  Gain positions of Arch-Bishop and then make your way into the Vatican itself with appointment as Cardinals--or rise to upper levels of management and TV production in the Evangelical realm.  Maybe even get a Pope that is more liberal than Francis and then begin to establish the beliefs that you want all people to have.

You could write a Common Core Bible that better suits today's social mores.  The whole Genesis and Creation thing would have to come out.  The same for Exodus--because the Ten Commandments are way too restrictive for our lifestyles today--and we wouldn't want someone putting those in a Courthouse and holding criminals to those standards.  Plus, Exodus gives credibility to the idea of a Jewish Homeland in the Middle East.  Deuteronomy is out too--all those rules on sex, the roles of women and how other religions should be viewed are unfair today.

Plus, you can reshape Jesus Christ into a pre-Barack Obama savior.  His 12 Apostles could have six women, three blacks, two Latinos, A Muslim and a trans-sexual.  HIs first miracle could be to change the water into wine at a same-sex marriage that Jesus not only attended but officiated at!  He could be made to say that the rich should be taxed for nearly all they have and that blessed are those on Food Stamps.  You could even have Judas be a rich, white Republican who sells out Jesus after the Vegan Last Supper for Corporate Tax Breaks from the Pharisees. 

It might take decades or even a century for the Left to take over all American religions--but once they do then they will believe everyone has the right to practice those religions just the way they say fit.