Christian leaders and groups have sounded the alarm over presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ views on religious freedom, abortion and gender, warning that her positions could endanger the rights of religious Americans. Vice President Harris already has the delegates needed to win the nomination and was a hero to social liberals when President Biden asked her to join his campaign while he was a senator and, earlier, California attorney general.
Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Warning Harris has tried to “roll back religious freedom protections” many times throughout her career.
Most people pay little attention to the vice president. Historically, the vice president has taken a bit of a back seat. Still, the vice president often has a track record of his own. Given President Biden’s decision to end his campaign, it’s worth examining VP Harris’ track record, which we’ve done here. https://t.co/97yMyk7DbR
— Brent Leatherwood (@LeatherwoodERLC) July 22, 2024
For example, when U.S. Senator Harris sponsored the bill, Non-harming behaviourwhich would weaken the landmark religious freedom law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. To tell It states that “the government may not substantially burden the individual exercise of his or her religion.” It was signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.
Harris and other supporters of the No Harm Act argued that RFRA was too broad. According to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the No Harm Act would have amended RFRA so that it would not apply to laws related to sexual orientation or gender identity.
Also excluded from RFRA are any actions that deny an individual full and equal enjoyment of any goods, services, benefits, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations provided by the government.
If it had passed and been signed into law, At first The bill would force Catholic doctors “to prescribe contraception or perform abortions if they participate in federal or state reimbursement programs” and would require “parochial schools that receive state funding, for example, to employ openly homosexual individuals as teachers or pastors.”
Although the Do No Harm Act never became law, it nonetheless signaled Harris’ stance on religious freedom, and her comments about the bill at the time were widely criticized.
“Freedom of religion is one of our nation’s most fundamental rights,” she said in 2019. “This First Amendment guarantee should not be used to infringe on the civil rights of other Americans or to subject people to discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.”
In other words, Harris supports religious faith within the church but not so much outside it, Craycraft said.
“In Harris’s biased interpretation, the ‘free exercise’ of religion means ‘freedom of worship,’ and nothing more,” Craycraft wrote. “As long as our church doors are not locked and guarded, or we are not prevented from praying in our own homes, we have our full ‘First Amendment guarantees,’ and nothing more.”
Craycraft wrote that Harris’ beliefs about religious freedom would “relegate religious belief to the periphery of public life and remove religious practice from public life altogether.”
This is not the first time Harris’ position on the issue has raised concerns among Christian leaders.
As a senator in 2018, she posed a series of questions to federal judge nominee Brian Buescher. Written Questions He was asked about his involvement with the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, the question implying that his Catholic faith would disqualify him from being a Supreme Court justice.
“Since 1993, you have been a member of the Knights of Columbus, an all-male organization comprised primarily of Catholic men,” Harris wrote. “In 2016, Knights of Columbus leader Carl Anderson described abortion as ‘a legal institution that has led to the deaths of over 40 million people.’ Anderson went on to say that ‘abortion is the wholesale murder of innocent people.'”
She asked: “When you joined, were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposes a woman’s right to choose? Do you believe abortion is, as Anderson puts it, ‘the mass murder of innocent people’? Do you agree with Anderson that legal abortion in the United States has ‘resulted in more than 40 million deaths’?”
Harris also asked Buescher if he was aware that the Knights of Columbus were opposed to marriage equality. [he] I joined the organization.”
Buescher was approved.
The Ethics and Religious Affairs Commission (ERLC) also pointed Harris’ positions on life and gender are concerning.
In 2010, as attorney general, she refused to defend in court a voter-approved constitutional amendment that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and then went a step further by fighting the amendment in court.
Harris has also been a “vocal supporter” of the extreme Equality Act, which would “add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act of 1964” and is “viewed as the most serious threat to religious liberty ever considered by Congress,” the ERLC said.
Southern Baptists have always championed religious liberty, and Harris supports the Equality Act, which would be the most radical attack on religious liberty Congress has ever considered.https://t.co/ONmoc5Wkkm
— Brent Leatherwood (@LeatherwoodERLC) July 22, 2024
When it comes to life, Harris supports taxpayer-funded abortion and wants to enact Roe v. Wade. In 2020, she became the first sitting president and vice president to visit an abortion clinic.
ERLC President Brent Leatherwood said Harris’ position is extreme.
“If delegates to the Democratic National Convention endorse her as their nominee, it will raise serious concerns among pro-lifers and those who believe in the biblical definition of marriage,” Leatherwood wrote in a Baptist Press column.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Andrew Harnick/staff
Michael Faust He has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years, and his work has appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, Christian Post, Leaf Chronicle, Toronto Star and Knoxville News Sentinel.
