It Looks Like Jail Time for Catholic Peace Activists

The famous concept of "Religious Liberty" does not seem to apply to unpopular religious ideas. Popular ideas in court cases, like the religion involved in baking a wedding cake, prevail. Ideas against war and atheism mostly fail.

There have been a few cases recently of Satanists and Wiccans being allowed to meet and to pray at public meetings. Too often, however, judges decide on the basis of whether they think certain religions ideas are out of the ordinary or not familiar to the public.

In the case of the Catholic peace people trying to break into a nuclear facility to make a political point certainly it breaks the law and breaches security. Some jail time is appropriate. But prison terms of 20 years is severe in this period where there is talk of "religious freedom."

I was involved in a several-year case to move the Ten Commandments off of City of Fargo property. A majority of judges treated our concern a not important. To me, being required to bake a cake for a gay wedding is not a serious limit to the baker's religious rights. Just as people told us, "You should walk on the other side of the street if you are offended by the monument" I could say to the baker, "You should bake cookies instead of wedding cakes. No one forces you to be in the wedding cake business."

All of this said, I realize it is not easy for judges to figure out what to do with civil disobedience and religious liberty cases. They make things worse, however, when they start allowing their personal views of what is a "good" religious belief and what is not. That deference if given to religion was what persuaded those Catholics to think they could break into a nuclear facility and not spend years in prison.