Christians still fail to understand religious freedom

The conservative media is always looking for a reason to be outraged. Unfortunately, the origin of the outrage is often a lack of information. For example, Megyn Kelly of Fox News took to the air earlier this week to discuss a court case that she feels proves President Obama and liberals are waging a war on Christianity.

"A jury has awarded a big pay out to a pair of Muslim truck drivers who were fired after refusing to deliver alcoholic beverages; citing their religious convictions. The Obama administration actually represented the two Muslims in this case, but has sometimes taken a very different position in the case of Christians".

The conversation that follows between Kelly and Judge Andrew Napolitano would have you believe that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was going out of their way to help establish religious freedom for Muslims while ignoring or actively fighting against these same freedoms for those of Christian faith.

A quick look at the cases at the EEOC exposes just how uninformed Kelly is since their press releases show the EEOC has been involved in a number of cases defending Christians.

On 7-17-15 the EEOC won $22,000 for a Seventh-Day Adventist who was refused a job because his religious belief did not allow him to work on the Sabbath.

On 8-27-15 the EEOC won a $586,860 award for an Evangelical Christian who refused to use a bio-metric time clock due to his religious beliefs.

On 8-21-15 the EEOC sued the National Federation of the Blind for terminating a Hebrew Pentecostal employee who refused to work on the Sabbath.

On 8-20-14 the EEOC sued for a Jehovah's Witness who was fired because his religious beliefs required him to attend church on Thursday and Sunday evenings.

On 12-23-13 the EEOC won a $40,000 settlement for a Pentecostal employee who was fired for refusing to wear pants since it was against her religious beliefs.

On 11-4-13 the EEOC won a $70,000 settlement for a Jehovah's Witness who was fired shortly after requesting a schedule change to attend an annual religious service.

On 1-23-13 the EEOC won a $25,000 settlement for a Pentecostal employee who was refused a job because her religious beliefs call for her to wear a dress instead of the pants required by the company dress code.

Demonizing the president and liberals is par for the course when it comes to conservative media, but the idea that the EEOC has some anti-Christian agenda is insulting and ignorant.

Of course, rather than cite any of these cases and rationally discuss what the law does and does not allow for when it comes to religious freedom, zealots like Kelly errantly compare the religious freedom of these Muslim drivers to the Colorado cake baker who was found in violation of the law for refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding.

While it may look like these cases are similar, the reality is they are quite different in one important aspect - discrimination. The job of the cake baker is to bake cakes. When he refuses to bake a cake for a gay couple he is not doing so because his religious beliefs say he can't bake a cake - he would likely have no issues baking this exact same cake for a heterosexual wedding. He is doing so because his religious beliefs suggest there is something wrong with this couple. In the end, he is not refusing to bake a cake, he is refusing service to someone based on who they are. That is discrimination.

The job of the Muslim truck driver is to drive a truck. Neither operator refused to drive a truck that day. What they refused to do was transport alcohol, since doing so was against their religious beliefs. If conservatives want to compare this decision to the Colorado cake baker the apt comparison would be that the cake baker has the right to refuse to include words on a cake that are against his beliefs. The baker could also refuse to provide a cake on Sunday or use alcohol in a cake based on his religious freedom. They are free to object to the specifics of the service if it falls outside of their religious convictions. They are not allowed to discriminate against a person for who they are.

Clearly this is a topic that the general public needs more information on as religious freedom is one of the most important rights granted by the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately the conservative media continues to leave their viewers less informed by constantly misrepresenting the legal definition of this right.

Republican hypocrisy helps criminals get guns

When it comes to gun regulations Republicans have a lot of concerns. While having your rights restricted is obviously an issue for most Americans, nearly every proposal aimed at reducing gun violence has corresponding Republican-backed legislation that should ease the concerns of the "they're coming to take my guns" crowd.

For example, while Republicans are adamant that requiring an ID to vote will prevent the illegal use of an election ballot while also providing a public record of who voted, they are opposed to forcing every gun sale to meet these same standards. Given that a survey of Chicago prisoners showed that the vast majority of criminals obtained their gun from a friend or family member, the objection to making privates sales subject to the rules followed by licensed dealers looks a lot like the NRA is protecting bad guys. Imagine how outraged many of these same people would be if a registered voter were allowed to take a few ballots home for their family and friends and drop them off later without providing any proof that the ballot was filled out by a legal voter.

Many will argue that the law already makes it illegal to sell guns to anyone that isn't allowed to own a firearm. Of course voting twice or stealing someone's identity to cast a vote is also illegal, yet that doesn't stop Republicans from advocating for additional voter ID laws. In fact, those in support of voter ID will argue that statistics showing that voter fraud is nearly non-existent are inaccurate since there is no system for tracking voters. Using this logic it seems that, unless we have a way of tracking private gun sales, the statistics on the number of people knowingly selling guns to individuals that wouldn't pass a background check is likely vastly under reported as well.

Voter ID laws are hardly the only legislation that exposes the hypocrisy of Republicans. Many of the people that argue they need a gun for defensive purposes are some of the same people that support tort reform to prevent doctors from practicing defensive medicine. Much like the gun advocate argument which says that people use their guns to prevent crime, data show that removing defensive medicine by placing caps on damages for doctors "leads to higher rates of preventable adverse patient safety events in hospitals." If defensive medicine and defensive gun use both save lives why are they viewed so differently by some gun advocates?

Another classic gun rights argument is that guns don't kill people - people kill people. To prove this point they have created a cute little meme that says "left my gun home today; it didn't kill anyone." Given that there are hundreds of accidental gun deaths every year, you could just as easily say "I left my family home without a gun today and no one got shot". But the really odd argument from gun advocates is that violent television and video games are somehow to blame for gun deaths. If this were the case then shouldn't we hear about the mass shootings committed by a Grand Theft Auto disc or a high definition flat screen TV?

Of course the idea is that violent video games desensitize people, making it easier for them to become killers. If this is the case, it should be noted that one of the core methods of desensitizing soldiers is to convince them they are a good guy with a gun and the other guy is a bad guy with a gun. Sound familiar? There is also information available that suggests hunting and killing animals might desensitize people making it easier for them to take a human life. If desensitization is an issue for television and video games then perhaps we should also consider the harm done by some NRA catch phrases, hunting, and shooting ranges on certain individuals.

Those who hold video games accountable for gun violence in the U.S. might also want to consider data that show a small group of gun dealers account for 90% of the guns that are used in a crime and recovered by police. Despite this issue, the NRA pushed through legislation that makes it nearly impossible for a victim of a gun crime to sue the crooked dealer that sold the weapon. Holding dealers accountable for the actions of their customers could be considered a slippery slope that might unfairly burden dealers who follow all the rules; however, Republican legislation suggests their concern for gun dealers is somewhat unique.

For example, one of the main thrusts of Republican education reform is to hold teachers responsible for the actions of their students. Despite data that show only 1.5% of teachers fit the "bad teachers" meme, Republicans have used this as an excuse to label the entire public education system as a failure. If we applied this logic to gun dealers it would be clear that we need a complete overhaul of how guns are sold in this country.

Republicans also support legislation that holds parents accountable for the actions of their children regardless of whether the parent was present during their child's offense. Additionally, Republicans have done little to offer similar protections for establishments that serve alcohol that are held accountable for the actions of their patrons after they leave.

But perhaps the greatest hypocrisy of Republican legislators regarding restrictions to guns is how they have handled abortions. First, while gun advocates argue against certain gun laws as infringing on privacy, the decision of Roe vs. Wade, which established a woman's right to an abortion, was based on this very same idea of privacy. Second, in spite of the fact that this Supreme Court decision makes an abortion a constitutionally guaranteed right, Republicans have no qualms with adding restrictions on Planned Parenthood and their patients with the goal of eliminating this right. Finally, rather than addressing the root causes of why abortions are necessary, Republicans have focused nearly all of their attention on the people that preform the abortions. If concerns over criminalizing actions of law abiding citizens is justification for preventing additional protections on gun sales, then it should be the same justification for protecting the doctors who are performing this legal procedure.

The record indicates that the rationale many Republicans use when they object to legislation that could keep guns out of the hands of criminals exposes a Jekyll and Hyde mentality that is embarrassingly partisan. If Republicans supported the kinds of restrictions for guns that they do for other people and programs we might be able to prevent some of the 32,000 gun deaths that occur in the U.S. every year.

NRA isn't serious about stopping gun violence

The senseless shootings at Umpqua Community College in Oregon has left Americans with many questions. The biggest of which is how can we prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future. Despite this shared goal, the resulting discussions have exposed just how deep the divide is when it comes to mass shootings. For instance, while the President spoke about improving gun control, many gun advocates lamented the politicization of this tragedy. Instead they wanted to talk about how this might be the work of Islamist terrorist or how it could be an example ofChristians persecution. How dare the President politicize this shooting!

Of course the hypocrisy doesn't end there. While being outraged by the president's belief that guns are somehow tied to the high level of gun violence in America, gun advocates were quick to trot out their standard list of memes which include "guns don't kill people, people kill people.", "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.", and "Nearly all mass murders occur in gun free zones."

Unfortunately none of these diversionary tactics actually does anything to stop gun violence; so in order to pretend that they are serious about addressing the extraordinary number of mass shootings in the U.S., gun advocates have turned their attention to the crisis in mental health. Oddly, their concern for mental health only really extends to American mass shooters. If a Muslim kills people, gun advocates are some of the first people to condemn Islam because, while guns don't kill people, apparently Islam does. If an African American kills people, they are quick to insinuate that black people are inherently more violent, using terms like "black on black crime" and "thugs". If a cop unjustifiably kills people, gun advocates see it as a very black and white issue where the cops were just doing their job, yet as many as 1 in 8 police officers suffer from PTSD while every year around 150 cops commit suicide.

Their concern over mental health is justified; however, the application of their concern seems very self-serving. The U.S. is hardly unique when it comes to metal health issues, yet statistics show that in an analysis of mass murders in 13 nations, the U.S. accounts for 133 of the 166 mass shootings that have occurred since the turn of the century despite having 1/6th as many people as the other 12 nations in the study.

The problem is, that for far too many gun advocates there is no difference between government programs aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and a full repeal of the second amendment. In fact, this NRA sponsored fear mongering of portraying any new gun laws as an excuse to confiscate "some or all guns" seems to have been part of the reason why the Oregon shooter had easy access to such an extensive arsenal given that his mother told colleagues she "wanted to get all the guns she could before someone outlawed them."

So rather than discuss laws to close any of the loopholes that allow criminals or the mentally ill to obtain guns such as limits to straw purchases, regulations to track gun inventories, or expanding background checks to private sales, gun advocates pretend that all gun control measures fail.

They'll point to Chicago as proof that gun control doesn't work, but ignore data that show states and countries with stricter gun controls have less gun related deaths. They'll claim gun regulations some support in America are akin to the gun control of Nazi Germany, but avoid talking about the astounding low rates of gun deaths in Japan which has arguably some of the strictest gun control in the world. In response to countries with successful gun control, they'll assert that you can't compare the U.S. to other countries; yet, in the same breath they'll hold up Switzerland as an example of how increased gun ownership leads to lower death rates. They'll make this case in spite of the fact that Swiss gun laws contain a number of restrictions that gun advocates in the U.S. oppose.

The problem is, that while Americans continue to talk about preventing mass shootings and gun deaths, the solution coming from gun advocates is to do nothing. Despite the fact that the U.S. has more guns per capita than any other country, by a wide margin, the NRA continues to insist that more guns equal less violence.

The NRA has thrown its support behind legislation that is supposed to improve the reporting of mental health issues; however, analysis of the bill’s language shows that it actually makes it easier for unstable individuals to purchase a gun.

But by far the biggest indication of how serious groups like the NRA are about preventing gun violence is their stance that video games and television are to blame. Outside of the fact that evidence doesn't support this claim, if video games and television have this sort of corrosive power, then the NRA should take a quick look at the sort of things gun advocates are telling their children. Because if this is your idea of a rational response to gun laws, then perhaps you are not mentally fit to own a gun.

For Republicans killing unions is more important than improving education

If you care about the future of education in the U.S. then the Republican Presidential debates have been a massive disappointment. The problem is that the candidates all believe the same thing, so there is nothing to debate. In fact, through two debates, education has only come up once. Unfortunately, even when education was mentioned it was used to attack the few candidates that support Common Core instead of any sort of substantive discussion.

Despite being generally uninformed on the topic, Campbell Brown, is one of the few people asking presidential candidates to define their positions. To no one's surprise, when the six leading Republican candidates were put on the spot they all coalesced around the same tired "solutions" the Republican Party has been pushing for decades - more charter schools, vouchers, merit pay, ending tenure and killing unions.

But perhaps the biggest reason these candidates have been so hesitant to make education reform the core of their candidacy is that they are aware that each of these ideas has been a failure when put into practice.

For example, Chris Christie recently said that teachers unions "are the single most destructive force in public education in America". The reality is, the issue here is not that teachers unions are bad for education but rather that teachers’ unions are bad for Republican education reform ideas. So instead of falsely claiming data exists to support their errant positions, Republicans have resorted to attacking the unions that stand in the way of the Republican plan to turn America's children into widgets that their corporate sugar daddies can profit from. For Republicans, education represents the next great opportunity to bilk the federal government out of billions of dollars while pretending to have American's best interests in mind, much like they have done for decades with the military industrial complex that has the U.S. spending more on defense than the next ten countries combined.

If these politicians were being honest they would acknowledge that multiple studies show teachers’ unions have a positive impact on educational outcomes, while another study showed that in areas where union membership was greater, children in low income families were more likely to achieve higher incomes. Since when did increasing test scores and lifting kids out of poverty become destructive?

Beyond that, if unions were the biggest obstacle to improving education, then why do so many countries that outperform the U.S. have higher rates of unionization among their teachers?

Rather than offer any specifics as to how unions are hurting results, Republicans tend to provide intentionally vague critiques like the suggestion that teachers’ unions have too much influence. While it is true that teachers’ unions spent upwards of $31 million on lobbying since 2010, the group that every Republican candidate would like to see expand - for profit education - spent more than $41 million on lobbying over that same time frame.

If influence is the excuse for attacking teachers’ unions, then Republican's should be prepared to take aim at the for-profit education sector since their political influence has already eclipsed that of the Republican educational boogeyman.

Of course, if these presidential candidates truly cared about improving educational outcomes they would recognize how much damage their actions are doing. While Republicans continue to act as bullies towards the nations educators by blaming them for everything that is wrong with the American educational system, they also create a culture of disrespect with comments like "the national teachers’ union (deserves a punch in the face)" that negatively impacts educational outcomes.

In fact, an OECD report on improving education points out that, "the higher a country is on the world’s education league tables, the more likely that country is working constructively with its unions and treating its teachers as trusted professional." For a group that blames hip-hop lyrics for a decline in values and video games for gun violence, ignoring the destructive nature of their own pernicious hyperbole is remarkably hypocritical. After all, would anyone classify a punch in the face as constructively working with teachers or treating educators as professionals?

Even if these Republicans did find a way to reign in their toxic rhetoric, their disdain for educators is so ingrained it clouds their judgment. For instance, nearly all Republican politicians seem to agree that firing bad teachers is one of the best ways to improve educational outcomes, which would be a fine idea if there were a plethora of highly effective teachers waiting in the wings; but the reality is that not only is there a teacher shortage, but Republican legislatures across the country, through their attacks on protections, lowered wages and restricted benefits have further reduced the pool of qualified candidates.

A better approach than the slash and burn policy of Republicans would be to find ways to improve the skills of those who stick with the job, or as the Brookings Institution suggests, shift the focus from firing bad teachers to retaining good teachers since only 40% of top new teachers stay in their job more than five years.

The fact that Republicans put so much effort into rooting out ineffective teachers which account for 1.5% of educators rather than working to retain the 60% of good teachers that are likely to leave after a few years tells you all you need to know about the Republican education reform plan. It is clearly more important to portray the hard working men and women of the public education system as the enemy than it is to improve education because, while valuing educators and working with teachers unions has an international track record of success, the Republican educational priorities routinely receive a failing grade. If only these politicians felt as strongly about accountability when it came to their jobs as they do for teachers.