Opinion Pieces

The following op-ed appeared the October 18th edition of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.

At a recent televised town hall, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke called for religious institutions to lose their tax-exempt status if they disagree with him on same-sex marriage.

CNN's Don Lemon asked O'Rourke, “Do you think religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities – should they lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?” Without missing a beat, O'Rourke emphatically said, “Yes.”

This is an outrageous assault on the First Amendment and our country's beautiful tradition of religious freedom.

One of our foremost freedoms is freedom to believe. That's why our Constitution includes the establishment clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”

Not only is the federal government prohibited from compelling citizens to join a particular church, as many of our Founders feared, the establishment clause makes clear the federal government cannot prohibit citizens from “freely exercising” their religion as well.

Some progressive denominations believe in an “evolved” view of marriage compatible with 21st century societal norms. But a great deal of Christians still agree with a 2,000-year traditional orthodoxy that a marriage can only be defined as between one man and one woman.

We can have an internecine debate about it in the public square. That's fine. But when the government begins to choose who is “orthodox” and who is “unorthodox,” that is an affront to American tradition and a violation of our First Amendment.

That is exactly what O'Rourke is proposing. Under his plan, the federal government would hold effective control over the religious beliefs and traditions of all Americans. Churches that dissented to government doctrine on social issues such as marriage and sexual orientation would soon find themselves in a financially impossible situation. How could the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, the 160-year-old church downtown, hope to pay its property taxes? It simply would not be able to.

O'Rourke's proposal, in addition to being unconstitutional, would pit churches with millions of American members against the U.S. government. If the federal government began officially discriminating against the Catholic Church, each of its 70 million American members would be forced to choose a side. And the devout would have their love for this country stolen from them.

We already know what religious life looks like when churches are left at the mercy of current progressive vogues. In December 2018, the Church of Sweden tweeted “Announcement! Jesus of Nazareth has now appointed one of his successors, Greta Thunberg.” Thus far, America's Constitution has protected its churches from the fate they've suffered in Europe.

But over the past decade overreaching court decisions like Christian Legal Society v. Martinez have dealt serious blows to Americans' freedom to believe. Many religious people have been left wondering whether there will be a place for them in the Democratic Party's envisaged America. If O'Rourke has his way, there won't be.