Mike Pence is more of a danger to religious freedom than an atheist like me.

Mike Pence said,

"No people of faith today face greater hostility or hatred than followers of Christ."

It's neither here nor there, but I wonder if he's ever run that assertion by a Muslim or a Jew?

Speaking of Muslims, the Christian fear of Sharia law is some of the fuel that feeds the desire in many to establish a Christian government. Beat the Muslims to it, is the theory. Now, I have asserted before that any kind of religious government would be a threat to religious freedom. In my last post, I noted how very lucky we are that evangelicals at the time of the founding of our constitutional republic joined Deists in insisting on the separation of church and state, for fear of persecution by whatever the state religion turned out to be.

Another fun fact from Frank Lambert's book The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America is that, at one point, the Anglican church in Virginia sent missionaries to Massachusetts, not to convert Indians, but to attempt to convert Puritans to Christianity. Any Christian government would be a threat to the religious freedom of any Christian sect that was not considered by the government to be in possession of religious truth. I will repeat for emphasis that evangelicals fought for the separation of church and state for this very reason.

Now, as to Pence's claim: do Christians face hostility and hatred today?

I will take a backseat to nobody in my assertion that all religion is nonsense. I do not single Christians out. I don't hate Christians. I don't feel hostility towards them. Knowing that religion is deep in the bones of many, if not most, people, I have no illusions that it will ever disappear. I have no desire to proselytize for atheism. (If you happen to be losing your faith, however, I am happy to help.) I am 100% in favor of your right to practice your faith without fear from the government or your neighbors. I do not, however, believe that criticism of religious faith is persecution. Religious faith should be fair game for scrutiny, just like any other belief. But my only weapon in these "religious wars" is persuasion.

What I am hostile to is religion driving public policy. And that is exactly what Mike Pence is fighting for.

The Religious Liberty Task Force is dangerous to religious liberty.

I have made quite a few of the following points before, but in light of Jeff Sessions's new Religious Liberty Task Force, they need repeating.

Simply as a matter of cause and effect, the separation of church and state is the only guarantee of religious freedom. It has worked very will in this country for over 200 years. Elsewhere in the world, religious factions attack each other physically because the one faction that gets political power persecutes the others. It does not happen in this country, because we do not have an established state religion.

The leaders of right-wing evangelical churches in the United States claim that they are being discriminated against and face hostility. But what constitutes this hostility? It is the fact that these religious leaders seek to have their religion decide public policy. They want their religion to be declared the official religion of the United States. That is their goal.

Now, what is the nature of this alleged discrimination? Is Christian worship forbidden or policed by the state? No. Is the outward display of religious beliefs (bumper stickers, signs, Christmas displays, etc.) forbidden on anybody's private property or in any church? No.

What, then, is forbidden? Religious displays are forbidden in front of government buildings. This is not an attack on religious freedom. It is a curb on government power. Also forbidden is discrimination against any group (race, color, creed, national origin, gender, sexual orientation) by any business, even when the owner of that business believes his religious beliefs are being violated. Well, should we worry about that that business owner's right to discriminate against certain customers because of his religious beliefs? I think our concern should be on behalf of the people the owner wants to discriminate against. Over the centuries, God has told his people to do many things. Today, his people are encouraged to refuse to sell cakes for gay weddings. Once upon a time, his people were given permission to own slaves. Later, his people were given permission to not serve negroes at their lunch counters.

What the Religious Liberty Task Force seeks to bring about is not religious liberty for all, but for their own religious principles to be given the force of law. This is patently unconstitutional, and un-American.

Now, here's a little bit of American history I haven't brought up before. When the Founding Fathers put together the Constitution, it was not merely the work of some elite society of Deists who insisted on the separation of church and state. The Deists were joined in a coalition by evangelicals (Baptists and others) who were afraid that they would be discriminated against by Puritans or Anglicans if church and state were not kept separate. (The source of that last tidbit is Frank Lambert's The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America.)