Protection Of Religion?

Well well well…I think the veil has just come off the Indiana GOP’s pious concern for (certain) religious beliefs. 

Indiana media outlets have reported on a Church “Bill of Rights” recently authored by two of the state’s most embarrassing Christian Nationalist officials, Todd Rokita and Micah Beckwith. Interestingly, that document mostly focused on the churches’ “rights” to engage in specified political advocacy: How churches can participate in the electoral process; what election-related activities a church can engage in without risking the loss of its tax-exempt status; whether the First Amendment offers any protection to churches when they engage in election-related activities; and whether religious objections to vaccines are protected in the workplace. In other words, the document outlines how much protection the law offers churches that want to engage in far-Right political advocacy.

But what about legal protections for religions pursuing more progressive values? Well, as the saying goes, that is a horse of a different color….

For those churches, “Christian” Warrior Todd Rokita has a very different message. The media has recently reported on Rokita’s “investigation” of Notre Dame, an effort to determine whether that institution might be–horrors of horrors–engaging in the DEI practices forbidden by the Trump administration.

DEI–like “woke”–is a term adopted as an all-purpose (and highly pejorative) epithet describing people who believe that their God and/or their understanding of moral behavior requires efforts to ameliorate past injustices, to foster equal treatment, and to welcome all persons to full participation in the civic enterprise. 

Rokita has informed the Catholic university that

Publicly available materials suggest that various aspects of Notre Dame’s operations may be governed by University policies that treat individuals—including students, prospective students, faculty, staff, and job applicants…differently based on the individuals’ race or ethnicity… employ race in a negative manner… or utilize racial stereotyping.”

The letter directly threatens Notre Dame’s non-profit status.

Failure to correct such policies and bring them into compliance with state and federal law could result in legal action by my office pursuant to Indiana Code § 23-17-24. I ask that the University respond to the questions contained herein to assist my office in evaluating whether further action is warranted to ensure Notre Dame is acting consistent with the terms of its nonprofit status. 

You might wonder what happened to Rokita and Beckwith’s purported concerns for the ability of religious organizations to follow their beliefs without legal concerns or government harassment. (That’s a sarcastic question, because the answer is obvious.)

It seems that our Christian Nationalist officials are only concerned to protect certain religions. 

This contempt for citizens who follow non-fundamentalist and non-Christian religions is hardly new to Indiana. When the state passed its ban on abortion (following a Dobbs decision that ignored precedent while reflecting Justice Alito’s Rightwing Christianity), our “pious” legislators ignored testimony that other religions disagreed with Christian fundamentalists about such terminations. Jewish and liberal Protestant clergy objected to the ban on religious liberty grounds, noting that the obvious basis of the legislation was religious dogma from some–but certainly not all– religious traditions, and that the application of the ban to people of other religions (or none) was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

Silly folks! In Indiana, our elected “faith warriors” protect only the “real” religions–those that support their theocratic political ambitions.

The juxtaposition of these two announcements–the issuance of the “Church Bill of Rights” and the investigation of Notre Dame–perfectly illustrates the Christian Right agenda: If your religion teaches you that God wants Republicans in office, that He (in these churches, God is most definitely a White male) wants women and minority folks to be submissive and subservient–why then, the laws of the land will be interpreted to protect you.

If, however, your religion happens to teach that all people–even women and those with dark skin (Beckwith’s three-fifths)– are entitled to human dignity, and that all persons should be welcomed and treated as equals in our various communities, such beliefs are not entitled to legal protection.

And if you happen to fall within the growing number of “nones”–if you depend upon a considered philosophy or moral framework to guide your interactions with your fellow humans, rather than adopting the dogma of a particular organized religion–our elected theocrats will simply ignore your right to intellectual autonomy, a right protected by the real Bill of Rights.

Have I mentioned how obvious and embarrassing these people are?

20 Comments

  1. Both swore to uphold Indiana’s Constitution, which has four provisions in its Bill of Rights regarding religious rights. Not that Indiana has not had its biases against Roman Catholics. The KKK is a prime example of that. Anyway, Indiana has given enough protection to religion.

  2. Q: Why does Rokita continue to delve into issues that do not matter to the Attorney General’s duties?

    A: He’s a media whore.

    Todd has taken up this MAGA principle that DEI actually discriminates against white people because “it prioritizes” hiring people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. That is not what DEI is about and our corporations and legal practices should have told Trump and Braun (Rokita) to stick it up their asses. Diversifying your employees is a leadership strategy that enhances your corporate viewpoint. How can you best deal with your clients/customers if your only focus is on white males? If everyone’s perception is based on experiences of white males, you’re not able to reach a large contingent of your customer base.

    The theory of DEI is taught in advanced leadership classes. The idea that it is discriminatory against white males is absurd and most definitely derives from white racist males who think brown-skinned people are hired ahead of them. The term they use is “merit.” Why hasn’t the lame media forced government officials to define “merit”? 😉

    Everyone who caved into Trump did a major injustice to society. Indiana corporations that bowed to Trump and Braun/Rokita should be singled out and hammered by consumers, like what has happened to Musk and Tesla globally. This is how democracy works when our political system is corrupted to its eyeballs. Tesla is now a toxic brand, costing Musk and investors substantial money. Right-wing militants don’t drive electric vehicles – they mock them!

    Now, Notre Dame has 30 days to respond to Rokita. Let’s hope that ND teaches the other Hoosier colleges, which all caved earlier, how it’s properly done. Too bad all Indiana collegiate presidents didn’t discuss this in advance on a conference call and choose to stand together.

  3. Take heart, Hoosiers. It’s not just YOUR government pissing on the Constitution. Republicans everywhere are throwing up on themselves to recapture their pathetic vision of righteousness.

    I guess I’ve lived long enough not be so surprised about anything idiotic Republicans do and say. When real idiots like Chip Roy (Texas) and monsters like Stephen Miller actually have a say in government, I fear the American experiment in democracy is on very shaky ground.

  4. Gosh Todd- TSLA is up $118 a share over the last month – so glad I bought a few months ago! Oh yeah – and your other hated stock PTLR is soaring .
    Maybe you should spend less time bitching on here ?
    Ain’t America great ??? 🇺🇸

  5. To quote Frank Zappa, “Tax the churches. Tax the businesses owned by the churches.”

  6. Merit, an interesting word. We saw in committee hearings yesterday, just how “meritorious” the Cabinet is. It’s no surprise that immigrants being rounded up and deported didn’t get due process now that we know that Secretary Noem hasn’t a clue what it is. She seemed extremely confident when she was asked to define habeus corpus and obviously hadn’t a clue.

    Marco Rubio wasn’t much better. He didn’t know anything about the dinner for those who bought the most of Orange Jesus’ meme coin, when asked for a guest list. The Senators wanted to know if any foreign actors would be in attendance. It seems that was the first time Little Marco had heard about it.

    When I was in DC, every Secretary who was scheduled to testify would have murder boards for at least a day to prep for it. I wonder if they do that in this administration? Doesn’t seem likely. It seems that everyone is given a script. They just stick to the script, no matter the question.

    “Merit” has also given us Secretary Hegseth, who continues to violate the Presidential Records Act, with his disappearing conference calls. Apparently he also thinks that since a wife can’t testify against her husband – not true she can’t be forced to do so – it’s just fine to take her with him to top secret meetings.

    For God’s sake, please bring back DEI!

    As far as the religious issues that you face in Indiana, let me posit a point or two. First, religions don’t have rights, people have rights. People are free to worship anything their hearts desire. The state cannot dictate what anyone believes nor can it favor any one set of those beliefs aka religion. Second, if they are successful in Indiana, you can rest assured that the movement to Talibanize states will move on across the country.

  7. As usual, is Becky individual, is lying about everything they post. Take a look at her stock she mentions. They both are in the middle of a month-long slide! Tesla is in complete turmoil.

    This is why Musk actually said that he is done donating money to politicians. He needs to stop hemorrhaging! The only exceptions will be some sort of emergency whatever that means! Blow back really sucks.

    As far as religious freedom, it’s guaranteed in the Constitution, but the original framers didn’t really believe in a come one come all religious freedom. Protestant white males who owned land and slaves were the ones where religious freedoms were protected. Not the slaves that brought Islam with them, not the Jews were worried and penned a letter to George Washington, and absolutely not the Chinese or the Native Americans! So true to the constitution, or the framers, the concern is for some sort of protestant Frankenstein’s monster conflagration of Dogma. Not based on scripture and not based on Christ! So, who really needs to be run out of Dodge?

    As long as people’s beliefs are not pushed on anyone else, then that should be acceptable to everyone. During my time in Rochester Minnesota, at the Mayo clinic, it was very refreshing. Immigrants from everywhere! Somalians, Sudanese, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Israeli, ukrainian, Asian Indian, and of course White Anglo-Saxon which were a huge minority, all working together for weeks to save the life of my mixed race African American son. Now that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

    Instead, you have these nincompoops using religion as a mask to spread suspicion and hatred of those that don’t have the same reflection in the mirror as they do! And they would rather not have to look at them.

  8. While we have lavishly benefited over our lives from the wisdom of the country’s founders and their rare at the time “woke(ness)”, they were unaware of some aspects of ours 250 years later.

    They accepted the practice of human slavery as a necessary evil because they couldn’t craft a complete, competitive country with Europe without slave states agreeing to join non-slave states. Also, the country that they founded wasn’t far removed from the Puritan religion that the first European arrivals here (that counted) brought with them. As testament to their wisdom, both compromises have been corrected since.

    Since when did woke become a bad thing?

    Culture is self-protecting in that it is sticky. Improvements are slow to grow, but when they become full grown, they are equally hard to replace. So we are presently stuck in the middle as a culture of non-woke(ness) struggling to replace woke here and restore what has been fixed back to broken again.

    Our founders must be moaning in their graves, knowing about our failure to thrive since their work finished.

    But it’s not over yet. If enough of us vote to reinstate it, we can still preserve progress.

  9. Becky,

    Wait until the costs of Tesla cars get the tariff on China added in. At 80% it will make a lot more sense to buy your electric vehicle from GM or Ford, or Kia or just about anyone else. Everything is up now, but there’s an old saying in finance: What goes up, must come down. We just had an adjustment and we’re all smiling. If we get to a recession, maybe that will change. You never know.

  10. Becky, I’m glad you and your fellow Tesla investors have benefited from your contribution. But how will that pay off in the future when thousands of unsold Tesla trucks need to be sold for pennies on the dollar or recycled as trash? Where will your stock be when Teslas can’t be repaired or sold? Will you support the government when they have to step in and save the company like they’ve done for big oil companies? Will you pitch in and buy more stock to help pull the company out of the dumpster?

  11. Q: What is the opposite of “woke”?
    A: Asleep – Unaware – Opposed to diversity, equity. and inclusion

  12. Merit?
    Now the Trump minions have placed a head of Homeland Security in power who doesn’t even know that habeus corpus is a right of individual protection of due process, not a power of the President to ignore due process!

  13. Merit? Not in any Trump organization, unless it’s measured by how fast one can kiss ass!
    The Christian warriors have only their own picture, or fairy tale version/, of religion in mind.
    I believe “woke” became a thing with the election of DeSantis, here in Floprididia. He, also, has no concern about anybody who does not think like he does.

  14. How is welcoming all bad for society?

    Also, Notre Dame is different from Harvard because it is a religious institution. I seem to remember that, here in Indiana, a Catholic school fired a counselor solely because she is in a same-sex marriage, which is against church doctrine. She sued and lost because courts said religious organizations have a right to act on their religious doctrine. It seems to me that if courts were consistent, they would also rule that Notre Dame has a right to act on its religious doctrine of including all of its members from many countries around the world. In its response, Notre Dame should quote the Rokita/Beckwith “Churches’ Bill of Rights” verbatim. Or maybe Rokita and Beckwith think a religious-affiliated university is different from a church.

  15. This appears to be a bald-faced challenge to Indiana voters: do they dare vote for these guys again? I won’t be surprised by either outcome. Will be a good gauge of how close Indiana is to the bottom of the barrel.

  16. So the obvious becomes more obvious. Since they have no shame, they have become more open about everything.

    Reminder – don’t feed the trolls – it’s the attention that they really seek, not a discussion.

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