Religious freedom lost

I am not a doomsday proponent, but the recent ruling by a Massachusetts’s court that a Catholic school must hire a gay job applicant certainly signals the end of religious freedom as we have known it in this country.

Our country’s founders established religious freedom as a bedrock of the nation because they had vast experience with government telling them what they must think and what values they could live by. How ironic that now it is the United States government itself interfering in the beliefs and values of religious groups.

It boggles the mind to understand any true constitutional rationale for this. Religious groups have always had the right to determine what it means to be part of them. They may exclude anyone who does not believe as they do, and who does not live by the standards they choose to uphold.

For the government to tell them how they must respond to sexual behavior makes a mockery of religious freedom.

But it seems more is yet to come. A potential federal law removing all religious exemptions for sexual beliefs will certainly be the nail in the coffin. So much for real tolerance.

James Becker

Spokane