The End of Religious Liberty?

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has advised county clerks in that state that they may, in defense of their religious liberty, refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, despite the United States Supreme Court's ruling, in Obergefell v. Hodges, that the Constitution requires the several States to issue such licenses to same-sex couples, as well as recognizing marriages between same-sex couples contracted in other States. Paxton's reasoning was that public officials, including those whose official duties are ministerial in nature (i.e., the official is not at discretion to refuse to discharge their official duty - namely, the issuing of marriage licenses to qualified applicants), cannot be forced to violate their conscience, or their religious principles, by performing an official act that conflicts with such religious principles. This is "defense of religious liberty," as it is practiced in 21st-century America.


It may prove to be the ultimate irony of the "religious liberty" debate in this country, that the robust defense of public officials's religious liberty may lead, ultimately, to the erosion, even the very elimination, of religious liberty for ALL citizens, not just public officials. Paxton has set the State of Texas sliding down a slippery slope, the bottom of which, though by no means near - yet - may nonetheless be seen clearly. Such a bottom would be completely contrary to Paxton's intent, and that of others of his intellectual disposition. Nonetheless, while an unintended consequence, it would prove to be a consequence that must be accepted, if our society continues down that slope.


Defending a public official's "religious liberty" to refuse to perform an official, ministerial act is a course of action without end. If a Christian county clerk may refuse to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, what is to prevent a Jehovah's Witness building inspector from refusing to issue a building permit to a Catholic organization, for the construction of a new church? What is to prevent a religious homeschooling advocate from refusing to grant a permit to a private charter academy, to open and operate their school? The latter example would pit two conservative constituencies - religious conservatives, and private entities performing formerly-public functions - against each other, a delicious refinement of the principle of "beware what you wish for; you may get it."


Shall our society embrace the spectacle of a Muslim DMV official denying a Jewish - or Christian, for that matter! - applicant for a Commercial Driver License, or vice versa? Shall a Baptist, serving on a professional-licensure board, be allowed to deny a professional license to a Mormon applicant, regardless of the applicant's sexual orientation? To expand the metaphor, shall a medical, or other allied-healthcare licensing board chair, suffering from the heebie-jeebies at the prospect of a homosexual applicant performing any of the activities of a healthcare provider, be allowed to indulge their aversion by denying the license? What if the only evidence of a physician's homosexuality is the fact that he, or she, holds a marriage license authorizing marriage to another person of the same sex? What will be the scope of public officials's right to claim a "religious liberty" exemption from the exercise of their ministerial function?


Ultimately, there will be no religious liberty for anybody, if public officials are allowed to abdicate their official duty arbitrarily, if not capriciously. The only way around the loss, by all, of their religious liberty, would be the ballooning of the ranks of public officials - another conflict between conservative principles - so that Catholic officials would process Catholic applicants's applications, Jewish officials for Jewish applicant's, Muslims for Muslims, Zoroastrians for Zoroastrians, Baha'is for Baha'is, etc., etc., ad nauseam sine terminum.Our society would then, far from guaranteeing our liberties, fulfill "in our own flesh" Thomas Jefferson's complaint against King George III, in the Declaration of Independence, that "he has ... sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."


Is this, really, what we Americans want for our society? Is this the depth to which we, in the 21st century, have been reduced?

Illinois Comptroller

[NOTE: Due to a glitch with copyediting, we missed changing the reference to Sheila Simon to note that she was the incumbent lieutenant governor of Illinois. We regret the error, and are happy to update this post to reflect the facts. - Ed.]


Illinois Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon (D), a former Southern Illinois University-Carbondale law professor, has conceded her race for Comptroller to the incumbent Republican, Judy Baar Topinka. At the state level, the vote in the Land of Lincoln appears to have been for keeping familiar names, with one notable exception. Secretary of State Jesse White (D) has handily won re-election, but it appears that Governor Pat Quinn (D) faces an insurmountable deficit in his race against Republican challenger, Bruce Rauner.

Racing for the Statehouses

Turning our attention to various gubernatorial races, CNN.com is projecting that incumbent Governor Rick Scott (R-FL) has won re-election, against former Republican Governor Charlie Crist (D), who had campaigned first as an Independent, before embracing the Democratic Party. At almost the same time, WGN-TV is reporting that Bruce Rauner, the Republican candidate for governor of Illinois, has taken a 49%-48% lead (barely 35,000 votes) over the incumbent, Pat Quinn (D).


While the Illinois race remains too close to call, with too many votes still to be counted, the apparent outcome of the Florida race is remarkable. In a contest to determine which candidate was less obnoxious to more voters, Crist was generally regarded to have the upper hand, even if for no other reason than he was "not Scott." With both candidates laboring under clouds of suspicion from their respective terms in Tallahassee, it appears that Florida voters have declined to "change crooks in mid-stream."


In Illinois, on the other hand, the race comes down to a question of which candidate has destroyed the most jobs in the past few years. Quinn, not unjustifiably, has faced charges that his administration's tax-hiking, regulation-increasing policies - abetted by Democratic control of both houses of the General Assembly - has made Illinois inhospitable to business interests. (Full Disclosure: I have been employed full-time virtually since moving to Illinois in October 2013.) Rauner, on the other hand, has not-unjustifiably been pilloried for the job-cutting zeal, in the name of profit growth, perpetrated by the various investment-capital organizations in whose management he has been involved. Rauner has also been accused of tone-deafness for a comment made in a public forum, in which he speculated that "perhaps not every job needs to be in the U.S." Clearly, the voters of Illinois, like those of Florida, faced a less-than-appetizing choice between two obnoxious candidates, to determine which was less obnoxious.

Illinois's Revolving Congressional Door

As we go to press, Representative Brad Schneider (D-IL10) has conceded that he has lost his bid for re-election to the Republican challenger, former Representative Bob Dold (R). Schneider defeated Dold in the latter's bid for re-election in 2012, and Dold had originally won the seat by defeating Schneider in 2010.


The people have an absolute right to have the representative of their choice. One has to wonder, however, whether this revolving door in Illinois's 10th Congressional district is ideal in terms of having the district's interests effectively represented in Washington. By replacing a freshman with another freshman, and then replacing that freshman with the former freshman (who comes back to Congress having lost his seniority), IL10 remains on the bottom of the seniority - and, thus, influence - pile as the 114th Congress convenes.


Considering the number of Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies that have headquarters in IL10, one would hope that stability, in term's of the district's representation in Congress, would soon come to northeast Illinois. That will have to wait for the 2016 election, and beyond. For now, the revolving door is going to take another swing 'round. What that means for the 10th district of Illinois will have to await the advent of the 114th Congress to become apparent.

Of Mitch McConnell and Wishful Media Thinking

CNN.com projected, unseemly early, that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had won his re-election bid against Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Although, as we go to press, CNN is showing McConnell with 53% to Grimes's 42%, with 87% of the votes counted, virtually ensuring that McConnell will, in fact, win the race, one is left to wonder if CNN's projection was not, perhaps, a bit premature.


It has been clear for several months, that the mainstream media have been pursuing a course of badmouthing Democratic candidates with dogged determination. The snap coronation of McConnell as the winner in the Kentucky Senate race argues, circularly, that CNN indulged in a little self-congratulation by fiat: "We've been calling for McConnell to win throughout the campaign, so we're going to go ahead and make ourselves look good by declaring him the winner as soon as the polls close."* CNN could not afford to lose face, in case Grimes did pull out a victory, so they went ahead and gave their "little cock-a-doodle of victory," before the vote tally began to come in.


Candor demands the admission that Grimes cannot win election to the Senate, except in the unlikely event that 100% of the uncounted votes are for her. Sen. McConnell has won his campaign, against all objective evidence. CNN's indulgence in media-policy-driven self-congratulation did itself no favor, credibility-wise.


* Not an actual quote.

The Rites of Democracy

The biennial ritual of the American democracy is well underway, as Americans are given, once again, an opportunity that they too often take for granted, and which people in some parts of the world are willing to die to earn - the right to vote from among their fellow-citizens, those who would govern them.


As the evening progresses, we will be linking to mainstream media reports of vote tallies as they develop. We will also add commentary to those results.


As we go to press, WGN-TV in Chicago is reporting that Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has won re-election. More details to come, as available.

Time's Up!

CNN reports that "Our Ted" has given up his "faux-filibuster" of the government-spending bill that defunds "Obamacare" after less than 22 hours. Given that the record for the longest filibuster in Senate history, 24 hours and 18 minutes, was delivered by Strom Thurmond when Thurmond was well into his 50s, one is left to wonder where the 42-year-old Cruz's stamina went. Perhaps too much green eggs and ham?

Winners never quit, and quitters never win. Just sayin'.