3157 - How The Supreme Court Weaponizes Religious Freedom w/ Andrew Seidel

It's a Very Casual Friday! Since Sam and Emma are out of town, the MR Crew are off. But in the meantime, check out this interview Sam and Emma did with Andrew Seidel, attorney with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, on his recent book American Crusade: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom. Andrew Seidel begins by providing background on the recent rise of a billion-dollar shadow network of Christian Nationalist organizations and judicial allies, with these modern “crusaders” attempting to redefine and pervert the meaning of the US constitutional right to religious freedom, using various realms of the private/public sphere – from bakers to coaches to schools and websites – to litigate the supreme privilege of Christian identity in the US via the courts. Seidel then quickly runs through the major breakthroughs in the Christian Right’s barrage on the US legal system, from the Mojave Memorial Cross case in 2010, and the acknowledgment of the Supreme Court that they would be willing to – at a minimum – participate in this discourse (and opening up the floodgates to countless filing), through the cementing of a conservative majority under Donald J. Trump, alongside the increasing publication of clear collusion and corruption among US Justices. Stepping back, Seidel then works to define the line between belief and action that defines the US conception of religious freedom, the right to act on one’s religious beliefs insofar as they do not infringe on the rights of others, and the pre-21st Century understanding that this, indeed, was the perspective set out by the framers, before tackling the slow perversion of this concept to solely protect the rights of Christians, while other religions – as seen in the Muslim Ban and the evangelizing of Coach Kennedy – are pushed to the side and gaslit. After exploring the state behind SCOTUS’ turn towards Christian supremacy and parsing through the details of RFRA – and whether its 1993 passage foresaw the conservatives’ abuses of it – they wrap up with where the battle against theocratic fascism goes from here.

Check out Andrew's book here: https://andrewlseidel.com/american-crusade/

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