A Concrete Example

[Hamilton02 at aol.com]

And my point is that such an observation itself exists in the  abstract.  
The religious diversity in this country is not limited to  non-government 
actors.  Government actors themselves share a wide variety  of religious 
viewpoints and a sincere respect for religion and liberty.   They swear an 
allegiance to the Constitution, state, or federal government as  part of their jobs 
usually!   This demonization falsifies  reality, but it is undertaken in 
the interest of serving religious interests,  which apparently justifies it.  
 
I would also add on behalf of government lawyers making these arguments in  
these cases, they constitute some of the very smartest lawyers I  have yet 
to deal with.  They are not stupid, insensitive bureaucrats,  either.  
 
For most in the legal academy, it appears that legitimate laws exist  in 
the abstract but not in application....  I remember when RFRA,  RLUIPA, and 
the state rfras were being debated there was all this talk  about how 
"obviously" safety and children would be  interests that  governments could pursue 
despite RFRA, implying that religious entities would  have respect for such 
interests.   That has not turned out to be  true.  
 
Marci
 
In a message dated 6/24/2009 10:18:37 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
laycockd at umich.edu writes:

Well, as RFRA's sponsor said at the time, religious liberty is very popular 
 in the abstract, but not very popular in application.  These government  
agents often place zero value on the plaintiff's religious  liberty, and that 
is all that matters.  And I think that is what Chris  meant.


 
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