Columbia Prof Warns of ‘Theocratization’ of Constitution by Conservatives
“view religious liberty rights as more fundamental than any other rights”
The SCOTUS ruling on Masterpiece Cakes has apparently got some progressives in academia concerned.
Campus Reform reports:
Prof warns of ‘theocratization’ of Constitution by conservatives
A Columbia University professor recently claimed that conservatives’ belief in “natural law” is leading to a “radical theocratization of the Constitution.”
Professor of Law, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Katherine Franke, who also serves as the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia, voiced her criticism of the conservative approach to constitutional law during a June 4 interview with Columbia News.
When asked what was at stake “in the tension between religious liberty and LGBTQ equality,” the academic referenced the recent Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, asserting that some people “view religious liberty rights as more fundamental than any other rights, and thus should occupy the top tier of constitutional protection.”
“The rights of LGBTQ people, women, people of color, and others, in their view, should yield when in conflict with religious liberty,” she continued, adding that “this approach to constitutional law derives from something we call ‘natural law’—that no man-made law can be superior to God’s law.”
According to the scholar, this interpretation “amounts to a radical theocratization of the Constitution, a document that was intended to be an adamantly secular social contract.”
“Ideological conservatives have been committed for generations to the idea that government cannot, indeed may not, tell business owners who they can serve and how,” Frank noted, claiming that “They are using religion-based resistance to same-sex marriage in order to weaken the larger national commitment to enforcing non-discrimination laws in business settings.”
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Comments
Professor of Law, Gender, and Sexuality Studies …
No need to read further.
Our inalienable rights derive from God. Sounds like the Founding Fathers theocratized the document.
The Constitution doesn’t mention God, much less that rights derive from God.
Correct. The Constitution does not mention God. The Declaration of Independence does state that rights derive from God: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Note that these civil right commissions are really thought police that attempt to change religious doctrine via punishment. Note also, that the Obama administration sought to monitor church sermons to ensure the political content conformed to leftist ideology. Both of these are in direct violation of the Establishment Clause. However the Constitution is strangely silent on the rights of LGBT to cancel said clause.