Christofascists and Republicans Continue to Claim to Be Above the Law

One of the mantras of the Christofascists and their pandering whores in the Republican Party is that gays want "special rights."  In truth, we only want EQUAL rights.  It is the Christofascists who want special rights.  Specifically, they want a license to simply disregard any law that they do not like, citing as always "deeply held religious beliefs."   This Christofascist mindset is bad enough, but when one hears legislators who have sworn to uphold the constitution of the United States engage in such batshitery, they make a de facto case that they are unfit to hold elected office.  The most recent example is Ben Sasse (pictured above), a Nebraska Republican who won his party’s nomination to the United States Senate on Tuesday (those undermining the Constitution seem to ALWAYS be Republicans).  According to Sasse’s website, “[g]overnment cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances.”  That's right.  If you don't like a law, just ignore it.  Think Progress looks at Sasse's arguably seditious views.  Here are excerpts:

“[O]ur right to the free exercise of religion is co-equal to our right to life,” according to the campaign website of Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican who won his party’s nomination to the United States Senate on Tuesday. Nebraska is a solid red state that preferred Romney to Obama by a massive 21 point margin in 2012, so Sasse is now all but certain to succeed retiring Sen. Mike Johanns (R) this November. If he does, Sasse promises to promote an almost anarchistic vision of religious liberty as a member of the Senate. According to Sasse’s website, “[g]overnment cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances.”

The question of when religious belief exempts believers from following the law is at the forefront of our national debate right now, with the Supreme Court poised to decide whether religious business owners can refuse to offer birth control coverage as part of their employer-provided health plans, even when doing so would violate federal law.  Yet, even the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court acknowledge that religious liberty is not an absolute right to violate any law at any time.

His proposed rule — that government cannot require someone to act counter to their religious beliefs “under any circumstances” — would mean that literally any law could be ignored by someone who held a religious belief counter to that law. . . . .  Under Sasse’s formulation of religious liberty, a person who killed his own sister because he believed he was under a religious obligation to do so would be immune from prosecution for murder.

Similarly, religious beliefs have been used to justify discrimination against racial minorities, women, and LGBT Americans at different points in American history. In an opinion upholding Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage, a state judge wrote that “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages.

The conservative Bob Jones University drew a similar connection between religion and racism to justify excluding African Americans entirely until the early 1970s, and then to justify a ban on interracial dating and marriage among its students.

Under Sasse’s preferred rule, where “government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances,” racists, sexists and homophobes who claim a religious justification for bigotry would be immune from anti-discrimination law.

ThinkProgress contacted the Sasse campaign to offer them an opportunity to clarify whether the candidate truly believes that any practice, including “stoning adulterers or putting to death those who work on the Sabbath” should be allowed if it is justified by a religious belief. As of this writing, we have not received a response.

By his own words, Sasse is unfit to hold a seat in the U.S. Senate.  He symbolizes the growing sickness of religious extremist.  It is hard to be a bigger political whore to the Christofascists than Sasse. I find him frightening.