The Constitution is the basis of all our laws.

It is the great equalizer.

After all, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”.

But it now appears that according to the domestic Taliban only those people who do not “have religion” have to follow all the laws of the land while those who do “have religion” can pick and choose what laws they will obey based on their interpretation of the Bible.

But not all interpretations of the Bible are the same, and this goes for the New Testament too, or there would not be so many Christian denominations

Conservatives have complained, with little basis for it, that the courts in this country are basing judgments on foreign laws, and some states have even passed laws to make sure no judge uses Sharia Law to come to a decision without any evidence that any judge has actually done that.

But, these same people want to be able to select what laws of this country they will follow or which they will simply ignore based on a book that is thousands of years old, and from a foreign country.

We are supposed to be a “Christian Nation”, according to some, where God gave us certain unalienable rights, and deemed that all men are created equal. But the very people who push this Christian Nation theory are the first to claim that they can ignore the God of the Declaration of Independence if they can find a translated verse in their bible that says they can do that.

The most recent example of Christian fundamentalists using their First Amendment right to freedom of religion to attack the rights of others is Michigan’s House Bill 5958, The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

This bill allows people to ignore the laws against discrimination if they claim they do so based on religious grounds. They can refuse service, deny employment, housing, and violate other citizens’ rights based solely on the claim that it violates their religious freedom.
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A Christian Fundamentalist in the healthcare industry can end a patient’s medical care if they claim their objection is founded on religious beliefs, and would be obliged to send a patient away because of the “conscience clause”.

Doctors and pharmacists can refuse care if a person is not of the “right” religion, is a single mother, or is Gay. This bill includes “first responders”, the police, ambulance crews, and firefighters.
You could be brought to the wrong hospital if it is the nearest, or watch your house burn down, or have a police officer refuse to handle a situation because helping you would go against their religious beliefs about you.

Michigan may be the only state right now with a law such as this, but as can be seen in other instances, if this one is allowed to stand, other states will follow suit, and your rights as a full citizen may depend on the state in which you live.

Some of us will be more American according to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution than others.

In 1990 Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a Supreme Court decision that “We have never held that an individual’s beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the state is free to regulate.”

And also,
“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections”.

Of course, over the years he seems to have changed his views a bit, unless, as this was the ruling in a case that dealt with the religious use of Peyote by some Native Americans, it being the wrong religious belief, his opinion stands pat and unrelated to Christian fundamentalist claims to be above the law.

The Native Americans involved in the case might have been members of the wrong religion.

Be prepared