When in Doubt, Religify! Fear Mongering about Religious Liberty | Political Research Associates

I have been sitting on this article for almost a month now.  Not quite sure as to how to introduce it, or where exactly the issue addressed falls in the grand scheme of thing.  But Clarksom, in his initial write up, mentions two recent rulings:

The Institute draws on detailed understandings of recent Supreme Court cases as sources for this legal groundwork against the coming siege. They point particularly to the 2012 case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which disallowed a discrimination complaint by a teacher, declaring that her role was part of the ministry of the church, and her employer therefore was exempt from employment discrimination laws. The decision is widely seen as having opened the door to a wide range of religious exemptions from civil rights and labor laws. The Institute also points to the 2014 decision in Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. & Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Burwell, which for the first time endowed “closely held” for-profit corporations with religious rights under the First Amendment.

And, that took my mind back to something I wrote last year in regards to the Hobby Lobby ruling:

When one looks at the decision rendered by SCOTUS it has to be through the lens of the Reich's overall agenda -  starting with a "reformed" interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause or an outright repeal of the First Amendment,  continuing with the abolition of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending with the implementation of dominionist ideology in order to govern by theocratic control.  With the ruling in Hobby Lobby, the Reich will "now" be able to exempt themselves from any laws that they don’t like; that they find “religiously objectionable.” 

As Clarkson notes, "most of our attention is directed to larger-than-life marriage equality dramas being played out in courtrooms, legislative chambers, and major media outlets, the foundation is being laid for massive resistance to marriage equality and much more."  The faux persecution complex, the so-called fight for religious liberty, and so on.

What has gone unnoticed in all this, the Reich has realized that they are losing in the court of public opinion.  They may not admit it but as Clarkson states in his companion piece for LGBTQNation "they foresee as a long siege against conservative Christian churches, businesses, and organizations."  Hence the issue at hand:

Major Christian Right legal agencies have begun issuing manuals for conservative churches and other organizations to inoculate themselves against private lawsuits and government enforcement of civil rights laws.

The national Christian Right legal network Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF, one of the primary groups behind the legislative agenda to redefine religious freedom into an affirmative right to discriminate) joined forces with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention to issue one such handbook, and the Texas-based Liberty Institute has issued a similar manual.

The ADF and Southern Baptist handbook (titled, “Protecting Your Ministry from Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Lawsuits: A Legal Guide for Southern Baptist and Evangelical Churches, Schools, and Ministries”) anticipates needing to “engage a hostile social and political culture… amid the gathering spiritual darkness.”

The Liberty Institute sees it as “not a matter of if but when religious institutions will be faced with damaging, anti-religious legal attacks.”  To prepare, the Institute advises institutions from churches and synagogues to fraternities and for-profit corporations to “religify.”  [Emphases in the original.]

Both manuals urge religification by revising all of their institutional documents, from employee job descriptions to facility rental agreements. Workers and volunteers are reclassified under a broad redefinition of “ministry”; and institutional functions are cast specifically in terms of religious doctrine. The goal is to be seen by the courts as qualifying for broad “ministerial exemptions” from the law in as many ways as possible.

As I mentioned last July, Hobby Lobby was a test and as the Rev. Terry Fox declared, in regards to what has now amounted to a renewed push for state RFRAs, "We are not going to let it die. We are very committed. The Body of Christ is a powerful movement when it comes together."

And just as Fox asserted, "These manuals demonstrate that Christian Right leaders of the culture war intend to fight LGBTQ Rights and marriage equality in the states, in the towns and cities, and in many kinds of institutions, no matter what the federal government and the courts may say."

When in Doubt, Religify! Fear Mongering about Religious Liberty | Political Research Associates