The Real Fight for Civil Rights

A friend of mine wrote the following. We all need to consider what's ahead for those of us who believe in traditional values. There's a long struggle coming up, and we should decide now what we will do--support groups that fight for us (for example, Alliance Defense Fund), create our own action groups, write letters, support political candidates who agree with us, etc. Please don't sit this one out.



Trevor Keezor recently lost his job as a cashier at a Home Depot in Okeechobee, Fla. The reason? He was wearing a pin on his apron that read "One nation under God."

Keezor had been wearing the pin for about a year in honor of his brother, a National Guardsman due to begin serving a second tour of duty in Iraq this December.

Forget the fact that the offensive phrase ---- which just happens to be enshrined in American law as part of our Pledge of Allegiance ---- is not an inherently religious one. Home Depot says it was only enforcing a strict policy forbidding employees from wearing unauthorized buttons and pins.

But is that the whole story? Keezor's pin was especially problematic because it invoked the G-word. That, and the fact that Keezor----a Christian----had recently taken to reading the Bible during his lunch break, was probably another factor that made his employer, and perhaps fellow employees, nervous.

This incident is just the latest in a long list of clashes between anyone expressing a thought, however harmless, that can somehow be construed as "religious" and those charged with enforcing America's post-Christian, post-religious orthodoxy.

And it's not the most upsetting one. As was seen in the aftermath of California's gay marriage debate, the secularist enforcers save their true venom for those whose expressions of religious belief go beyond simple affirmations.

Thomas Messner of the Heritage Foundation has catalogued a long list of incidents in which supporters of traditional marriage (Yes on Prop 8) were targeted because they had the temerity to exercise their rights as Americans by actively supporting a political campaign with which the "progressive" elite disagreed. While hardly an unbiased source, many of these stories where documented in the mainstream media as they occurred, and, if they are being refuted, it's news to me.

But it actually gets worse. A U.S. District Judge in San Francisco has gone along with demands from Prop 8 opponents----in this case two same-sex couples, a gay rights organization and the city of San Francisco----that the organizers of the Yes on 8 campaign turn over internal documents. The hope of the plaintiffs is to find proof that the Yes on 8 effort was motivated by anti-gay bias (whatever that means), which would, in their minds at least, make Prop 8 unconstitutional.

Thus, a politically organized group of American citizens is being asked to prove in a court of law that its reasons for holding a certain set of beliefs, and pursuing a given public policy goal based on those beliefs, were justified. The momentousness of this demand cannot be overemphasized.

Add to these other examples involving conscience clauses for healthcare providers, opt-out policies for the parent's of public school students, the nasty treatment of innocent bystanders such as Carrie Prejean, or the charges of anti-gay bias that are certain to arise out of the recently passed Hate Crimes law and you start to get a preview of what lies ahead, not just for social conservatives but any freedom-loving American; because anyone who holds a belief that is based on traditional ideas of morality---whether or not it's explicitly religious---will be subject to the same treatment.

This is not to suggest that issues involving religious liberty are straightforward; they are not, and they will force conservatives, the religious, and traditionalists of all stripes to address difficult quandaries on the proper limits of religious expression.

In addition to the instance, like the one involving Trevor Keezor, of a private corporation enforcing its dress code, cases involving Islamic taxi drivers in Minneapolis who refused to take passengers carrying alcohol and Muslim students in San Diego who where given a daily break for prayer spring to mind.

Despite what those in the progressive community may think, the fight for same-sex marriage will not be the defining civil rights battle of our time. Instead, the need to defend the religious liberty and freedom of conscience of anyone with a serious and well-developed moral and spiritual philosophy -- Christian and nonchristian alike -- will be the front along which the future freedom of all Americans will be decided.

Whether or not we remain the “Land of the Free and the Home of Brave,” in deed as well as word, will be determined by which side wins that fight.