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Vice President Kamala Harris delivers virtual remarks to the National Bar Association from the White House in Washington, D.C., July 27, 2021.(Elizabeth Frantz/Pool via Reuters)

What happened to the free exercise of religion?

Editors Note: This article is adapted from Sean Spicers new book Radical Nation: Joe Biden and Kamala Harriss Dangerous Plan for America, published this month.

On January 16, 1993, President George H. W. Bush proclaimed the first Religious Freedom Day, commemorating the anniversary of the 1786 passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. That statute was authored by Thomas Jefferson, and it served as a model for the opening lines of the First Amendment. President Bush noted in his Religious Freedom Day proclamation that freedom of religion is the first of all freedoms enumerated in our Bill of Rights.

Every president since Bush has issued a Religious Freedom Day Proclamation on January 16. In 1999, President Bill Clinton called religious freedom a fundamental human right . . . without which a democracy cannot survive. In 2009, President George W. Bush proclaimed religious freedom one of this lands greatest blessings.

In 2013, President Barack Obama opened his proclamation with the statement Foremost among the rights Americans hold sacred is the freedom to worship as we choose. Since then, many Democrats and progressives have adopted the phrase freedom of worship while avoiding the phrase free exercise of religion. The free exercise wording comes from the opening line of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

It may seem trivial, but theres a big difference between freedom of worship and the free exercise of religion. Those on the left understand the difference, and thats why they speak of freedom of worship and avoid the words of the First Amendment.

Words matter. When politicians speak of freedom of worship, they are saying that you are free to worship any way you choose in your home or in your house of worship. But they dont want your religion to affect the way you live your life in public or the way you conduct your business. Democrats and progressives say that you are perfectly free to pray and worship in any way you choose as long as you do so behind closed doors.

But if you are a Christian businessperson, you must set aside your convictions and pay for your employees abortions. If you are a Christian baker, you must set aside your conscience and create a cake that celebrates a same-sex wedding. You may practice your faith in your house of worship one day a week. The rest of the week, your conscience belongs to the State, not your Creator.

But the First Amendment guarantees much more than freedom of worship. It guarantees the free exercise of religion. This means that you are free to practice your religion wherever you are, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in every aspect of your life.

The Biden-Harris administration wants to deprive you of the right to live out your conscience and obey your God.

In 2012, Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a chain of arts-and-crafts stores owned by the David Green family, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government over a mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) requiring companies to provide abortifacients. Hobby Lobby argued that the mandate was a violation of the Christian owners First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

Kamala Harris, in her role as attorney general of California, joined an amicus brief from the attorney general of Massachusetts arguing that Hobby Lobby should be required to provide abortifacient coverage for its employees. Harris reasoned that for-profit corporations are not permitted to hold personal religious beliefs, even when those corporations are wholly owned by a Christian individual or family. She wrote:

Certain rights by their nature are purely personal guarantees that cannot be held by a business corporation (or, in some cases, by any corporation or collective entity). . . . Rights to the free exercise of religious beliefs, whether created by statute or by the Constitution, likewise protect the development and expression of an inner sanctum of personal religious faith. Free-exercise rights have thus also been understood as personal, relating only to individual believers and to a limited class of associations comprising or representing them. . . . Unsurprisingly, there is no tradition of recognizing or accommodating the exercise of such inherently personal rights by ordinary, for-profit business corporations.

According to Kamala Harris, if you run a for-profit business, whether its a little Colorado bakeshop or a multibillion-dollar chain of hobby stores, the First Amendment doesnt apply to you. You are free to practice your religious faith in any way you choose, as long as you keep it within your private inner sanctum. You are not allowed to apply the precepts of your faith to the way you conduct your business. In the public square, you must obey the almighty State, not almighty God.

With the center-left Justice Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled five to four in favor of Hobby Lobby.

But Kamala Harris wasnt finished. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 2017, she introduced the Do No Harm Act. It would amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, stripping religious business owners of their First Amendment rights and forcing them to obey government health-care edicts that violate their religious convictions and moral conscience.

In a press conference promoting the Do No Harm Act, Harris said, The freedom to worship is one of our nations most fundamental rights. She didnt dare quote the actual wording of the First Amendment, which guarantees not merely freedom to worship but thefree exercise of religionin every aspect of our lives.

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Democrats Assault on Religious Liberty Began with an Innocuous-Sounding Phrase - National Review

On Sept. 30, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against the University of Georgia and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia brought by former Bulldogs baseball player Adam Sasser.

The suit came in response to Sassers permanent release from the UGA baseball team and suspension from campus following an incident that took place at the Georgia-Tennessee football game in Sanford Stadium on Sept. 29, 2018. Spectators filmed and saw Sasser, who is white, in the UGA student section using a racial slur directed at then backup quarterback for Georgia, Justin Fields, who is Black.

The defendants in the lawsuit are listed as the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, the University of Georgia, Jere Morehead, both individually and as president of UGA, the UGA Equal Opportunity Office, Eryn Janyce Dawkins, both individually and as director of defendant UGA EOO, the UGA Athletic Association, Edward McMillian Tate, both individually and as Chancellor of Legal Affairs for UGA, and C. Dean Alford, both individually and as a member of Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia.

The ruling states that Counts I, II, III, IV, V and VII, of Sassers second amended complaint, as well Sasser's breach of contract claims against the individual defendants, are dismissed with prejudice, meaning Sasser can not re-file these claims again in court. The ruling for count VI does allow Sasser to re-file this claim but only at the state level and not in federal court, where the original lawsuit was filed.

Count I, which was brought against all defendants, concerned Sassers right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of expression and the 14th Amendment which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws as well as due process of law.

Count II regarded Sassers procedural and substantive due process granted by the 14th Amendment and was brought against all defendants.

Count III was brought against the individual defendants in a personal capacity and regarded individual liability Free Speech clause violation. Ultimately, it stated that Sassers removal from the UGA baseball team and other sanctions that were imposed on him had no rational basis because at the time of the incident he didnt pose a threat to himself or others.

Count IV was also brought against all defendants in a personal capacity and regarded procedural and substantive due process. Additionally, it alleged denial of interest in his education by defendants, as well as denial of right to be heard by defendants.

Count V regarded deprivation of equal protection granted in the 14th Amendment and re-alleged and incorporated all previous allegations while challenging the UGA Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harrassment Policy.

Count VI, the only count Sasser can further pursue at the state level, regards breach of contract and alleges that the UGA student handbook and student athletic handbook establish a binding agreement between the Defendants and each UGA student, and alleges that the defendants failed to follow these binding procedures.

Count VII was brought against all defendants and regarded Declaratory Relief and Injunction, realleging all previous counts. Additionally, it alleged that all defendants have committed multiple violations of federal and state law and caused irreversible damage to the plaintiffs future career and employment prospects.

On Sept. 29, 2020, Sasser, who was originally listed in the lawsuit under the name John Doe until he was ordered to file an amended complaint identifying himself by name, filed the federal suit in Georgias Northeast District Court.

He alleged suffering due to extensive damages as the Defendants and UGA Athletic Association caused severe damages, including but not limited to employment damage and thus monetary damages, states the lawsuit.

Additionally, the lawsuit alleged that the defendants and its agents are responsible for depriving Sasser of his constitutional rights under the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.

The lawsuit states that on Oct. 4, 2018, Dawkins issued findings and sanctions, including suspending Sasser for the remainder of the Fall 2018 semester.

According to the lawsuit, on Oct. 9, 2018, Dawkins revised the sanctions, permitting Sasser to attend classes remotely, but prohibiting him from participating in UGA athletics, attending any UGA home games until Jan. of 2020 and from entering UGA campus, unless given permission by the EOO.

Additionally, the suit states that Sasser was unable to attend all of his classes remotely because he needed his professors permission to do so and it was not possible for all of the classes he was enrolled in.

The rest is here:
Judge dismisses former baseball player's lawsuit against UGA - Red and Black

A group of educators and civil rights groups is challenging Oklahoma's new law limiting public school teachings on race and gender issues in court.

The lawsuit, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Oklahoma, was filed Tuesday. The organizations argue that HB 1775, which took effect in May, interferes with students' and educators' First Amendment rights to learn and talk about gender and race issues in school.

This policy also prevents students from discussing in-depth American history that reflects the experiences and viewpoints of "all historically marginalized communities in this country," the ACLU argues.

The groups suing asked the court to declare the law unconstitutional under the First and 14th Amendments. They also requested that a judge issue a preliminary injunction that would put an immediate stop to the policy in Oklahoma.

"All young people deserve to learn an inclusive and accurate history in schools, free from censorship or discrimination," said Emerson Sykes, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

The organization said this lawsuit is the first of its kind that challenges a state's effort at limiting instruction on critical race theory, which examines how racism as a social construct intersects with history, policy, the law and other areas. It's an advanced teaching usually reserved for law schools and undergraduate sociology courses.

This concept was pushed into the public consciousness by former President Donald Trump last year. Right-wing activists have since made it a cause clbre and several Republican-led states, including Oklahoma and Idaho, have passed laws attempting to limit its reach in public schools.

But Oklahoma's law doesn't explicitly mention critical race theory in the legislation's text.

HB 1775 states broadly: No public school student in Oklahoma can be required to participate in any form of "mandatory gender or sexual diversity training or counseling." It goes on to say, "Any orientation or requirement that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or a bias on the basis of race or sex shall be prohibited."

Similarly, lessons showing one race or gender is superior to another or that a person, because of their "race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive" are banned.

If teachers are found to be teaching these lessons, they could lose their licenses and schools can lose their accreditation.

"HB 1775 is so poorly drafted in places it is literally indecipherable that districts and teachers have no way of knowing what concepts and ideas are prohibited," ACLU attorney Sykes said. "The bill was intended to inflame a political reaction, not further a legitimate educational interest. These infirmities in the law are all the more troubling because the bill applies to public colleges and universities, where the First Amendment is especially protective of academic freedom."

The ACLU says as a result of the law's approval, school districts in Oklahoma have told teachers not use terms like "diversity" and "white privilege" in the classroom. Books and other literary works dealing with race such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Raisin in the Sun have been removed from reading lists

Some schools have also limited or altogether eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion training for their educators, according to the group.

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Teachers and civil rights groups sue over Oklahoma's ban on critical race theory - NPR

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WRIC) The Charlottesville Unite the Right Trial is set to start on Monday, four years after that infamous protest that killed Heather Heyer.

Jury selection is set to begin on Oct. 25, in the federal trial against the organizers of the 2017 rally. The trial is being heard in Charlottesville and is expected to take four weeks.

It is hard to forget the images of white supremacists marching with tiki torches, rallying through town and a car plowing through a crowd, killing counter-protester Heather Heyer and injuring others.

This case was brought by nine Charlottesville community members who were injured in the violence 4 years ago, saidAmy Spitalnick, Executive Director of Integrity First for America.

The non-partisan, non-profit organization is supporting the plaintiffs in what is the first major civil suit to be tried under the so-called Ku Klux Klan Act. The organizers of the Unite the Right rally are accused of a conspiracy to commit violence.

These defendants planned violence on social media and on other communication forums and even in-person conversations, Spitalnick said. They went to Charlottesville, committed that violence and then celebrated that violence.

Some of the two dozen defendants in the case have alleged this is about their first amendment right to free speech, and others have claimed they were just joking. Spitalnick says the event in Charlottesville 4 years ago was no joke nor an accident.

But rather meticulously planned, online, in social media chats and other communications that will be coming out over the course of trial, she said. We have 5.3 terabytes of digital evidence that our team will be presenting.

All that evidence is some of why the trial is expected the take four weeks. The other part is just the number of parties involved in the case. All nine plaintiffs are expected to take the stand and there are 24 defendants in the federal case.

Get breaking news, weather, and sports delivered to your smartphone with the WFXR News app available on Apple and Android.

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Charlottesville Unite the Right trial starts Monday - WFXRtv.com

Rob Miraldi| Special to the USA TODAY Network

William O. Douglas was the curmudgeon of the U.S. Supreme Court. Fiercely independent, crusty, irreverent, a product of the New Deal and an active man who did not seem to fit behind a desk wearing a robe. But there he was, a Supreme Court judge for 36 years, the longest serving justice ever who wrote more opinions than any other judge.

Douglas had his critics Gerald Ford tried to impeach him in 1970 because he believed that when the Framers wrote the First Amendment to the Constitution, beginning with the words Congress shall make no law regarding freedom of the press or speech, they meant it. No law means no law.

Douglas, who died in 1980, was fearful most of all about the pervasive reach of snooping government that would chill reporters doing their work and inhibit people from speaking whats on their mind. Governmental intrigue or aggression is an eternal danger, Douglas warned in1974 in the only case the Supreme Court ever decided on the question of whether reporters are shielded from government prying into their sources.

So I wonder what he would say today about, for example, the recent revelation that longtime national security reporter Barbara Starr of CNN, whose phone records were secretly snared by the Trump Administration because she wrote stories with unidentified sources that Trump wanted. The stories she wrote in 2017 were mildly embarrassing but certainly no real threat to national security. It was a frivolous and dangerous pursuit, a fishing expedition.

What happened to Starr happened to at least seven other reporters that we know about. In fact, the Trump Administration sought the sources of nine journalists in its four-year reign. In contrast, Obama went after the same number in eight years, although it is worth pointing out that his administration was aggressive in its pursuits of leakers. And while presidents have sought reporters sources since the Civil War, the pursuit by Trump has taken it to a new level.

CNNs lawyers were gagged; they could not inform Starr nor go to court to argue that governmental prying was not only wrong but arguably illegal.

Self-government cannot succeed, Douglas wrote, unless the people are immersed in a steady, robust, unimpeded, and uncensored flow of opinion and reporting subjected to critique, rebuttal, and re-examination.

And that is threatened when journalists are at the whim of Presidents like Trump who believed the press is an enemy of the people.Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Risen, who has felt the sting of such probing, writes, For national security reporters today, being good at your job can make it hard to sleep at night.

So here we are again, 47 years after the court decided that reporters should be treated like all other citizens and that they have to turn over sources or go to jail.Unless Congress finally sees fit to pass a federal law which gives the press a privilege or as Douglas called it, a preferred position.

I spoke with Gabe Rottman, director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Presss Technology and Press Freedom Project.His group is the premier advocate for the press in the nation. And he is hopeful that the time might have arrived for a federal press shield law to get through Congress.

In the past, resistance to treating reporters as privileged characters much as we do for clergy, physicians and spouses has brought resistance.In 2013, the law bogged down around how to define who would qualify for the privilege.Who exactly is a reporter in the age of the Internet? Julian Assanges huge dump of raw classified documents and emails in 2010 and 2016 made many not want to let him be called a reporter.

But 49 states in the U.S. have some sort of shield law that find a way to define who qualifies. Rottman says it revolves around finding the best definition of the function being served. It needs to be broad and functional. In other words, if you are pursuing facts to share with any public, you are a journalist.

We need more voices: Big tech, information and American political discourse

Free speech and a free press: Inside the 'golden age of defamation': How the First Amendment is under siege

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon is clear that the time is now for a shield law.

The Trump Administration spied on reporters it suspected of no crimes in its hunt to identify their sources and prevent the American people from learning the truth about Trumps lawlessness and corruption, he declared in announcing his shield law.

Rottman is more cautious as to why from major news organizations had to face broad, secret demands for their phone and email records in an effort to identify their confidential sources.

Rottman says Congress needs to ask why.

Without a concrete, public accounting, observers can only speculate about the governments reasons, he told me. There is no public reporting on the reasons that the records were obtained.

Risen is a former reporter for The New York Times whose confidential sources revealed wide surveillance by the government on private citizens after the World Trade Center attacks. And the government sought with a vengeance to get Risens sources.

The real goal of leak investigations, he says, is to have a chilling effect on the press, to stop reporters from investigating the government. Embarrass enough investigative reporters and maybe they will stop embarrassing the government.

But that is not just bad for reporters, it is bad for democracy.

Go back to Douglas.

A reporter is no better than his source of information, Douglas insisted, rightly. The press has a preferred position in our constitutional scheme, not to enable it to make money, not to set newsmen apart as a favored class, but because the right to know is crucial to the governing powers of the people.

It comes down to the free flow of information to the public, saysRottman. Sources will not come forward, they wont even talk if they are worried about incidentally being swept up. You dont want the press to become an investigative arm of the government.

Douglas, again, hit the nail on the head years ago: Fear of exposure will cause dissidents to communicate less openly to trusted reporters. And, fear of accountability will cause editors and critics to write with more restrained pens.

The Biden Administration has recognized this, recently issuing clear and careful guidelines as to when a reporters source should be pursued by the federal government.Its a far cry from Trump.But the point, still, is the press cannot be at the whim of different administrations approaches.The First Amendment is not whimsical; it is the heart of democracy.

The rules need to be made durable, Rottman says.

Give the people a federal law that protects the reporters who gather their news from, as Sen. Widen says, the thuggish and Orwellian abuses of administrations like Trumps.

Rob Miraldis writings on the First Amendment have won numerous state and national awards. He teaches journalism at the State University of New York. T

Twitter: @miral98

Email: miral98@aol.com.

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We must make the First Amendment 'durable.' Here's why | Miraldi - Poughkeepsie Journal