On the 12th day, Rand Paul . . . answered this question from CBS News: “How do you feel about the religious freedom laws that we’re hearing a lot about? What is your stance?”
He answered with considerable eloquence:
It’s hard for me to even imagine that there would be a question over whether or not you would have religious liberty or the freedom to express yourself how you would want to in our country. Our founding fathers sort of struggled with this because when they were writing the Bill of Rights there was a debate in our country. The debate was: well, really, do we need to list something so obvious? This, I guess, is why you have to list things is that it is pretty obvious to people that you should be able to decide whether you want participate in a wedding or not, what kind of wedding you want to participate in, what you say, in—you know that relates to your expression of your religion. So I don’t think it’s any question that we should have freedom of religious expression in our country.
Congratulations to the Rand Paul campaign for being in the mix. I wish it had come sooner, and I wish it included more information on what he would do to protect the rights of those of us who oppose gay marriage to make a living, without government punishment. Does he mean just the wedding participants, or does he also mean the Christian bakers, florists, and photographers?
As the campaign unfolds those of us who care about religious liberty need to keep asking for specifics, especially from candidates you support: Would you support legislation that protects the rights of Christians in small businesses not to make gay wedding cakes (such legislation I’ve proposed would be small, wedding vendor related and viewpoint netural)? Would you support the Marriage and Freedom Restoration Act that prevents government from discriminating against people for their marriage views? Should the EEOC or other government agencies keep track of cases where people are fired for their views opposing gay marriage or only cases where gay people are fired? How do you propose we get to live and let live and not “your religion is bigotry”?
Kudos to Rand Paul for joining the conversation.
Maggie Gallagher is editor of ThePulse2016.com.
