To The Eagle:

The Supreme Court's right-wing justices have weaponized religious freedom. The problem isn't religion per se. Rather, it is the kind of religion at play, the kind embraced by the staunch conservative majority of Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Brett Cavanaugh and Samuel Alito.

It’s a crusading, theocratic, religious fundamentalism that prioritizes fealty to a particular conservative interpretation of a god's supposed will, over the democratically sustained rights of American citizens. It's the lethal mix of religion and politics that our founders sought to restrain. It is conservative Christian nationalism, run amok.

Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump foisted Amy Coney Barrett on the country. Barrett has written that Catholic judges should not take any action that conflicts with church dogma (commencement speech she gave at Noter Dame in 2006. Instead of upholding their secular oath, Barrett has recommended that judges should "conform their own behavior to the Catholic church's standard." Barrett refused to repudiate such statements yet was nonetheless confirmed.

The First Amendment that Thomas Jefferson revered "as building a wall of separation between church and state” is a brilliant endowment to our pluralistic democracy, inclusive of both people of faith, and those professing no religion at all. Our republic is conscientiously governed through secular legislation, not religious decrees.

Today, that wall between the state and the church is being demolished by theocrats on the Supreme Court who are imposing the dictates of their religion upon the laws of our republic. One of those laws has recently, in Texas, turned citizens into vigilantes, instituting mob rule over women’s reproductive rights and choices.

There can be no true freedom of religion unless our government is free from the influence of religion. The highest court that now rules on the constitutionality of our laws has been overtaken by that influence.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island