Yep, Old Al is due for some reprogramming.  He has lessons to learn.  Face it Al, a simple “I’m sorry” is not going to cut it among your ideological peers.

When Al is done at the treatment center, he will have relearned the basic tenant of liberal orthodoxy.  For those who must, religion is to be practiced only in a place called a church or in the privacy of one’s own home. Any representation of religion outside of those two places is an affront to the liberal constituency that demands that their secular belief system never be challenged. 

Make no mistake, the secular belief system can never allow itself to be scrutinized by a competing belief system that has moral absolute truths as a reference point.  For the practicing liberal, such scrutiny fails because it just isn’t fair – the other side has an unfair advantage.  For things to work according to the progressive play book, any religious principles that escape the confines of church or private residence must be mocked, marginalized, legislated against or blocked by judicial action.  A well trained progressive intuitively knows that even a fleeting acknowledgement of the magical sky spirit (in case the term “God” is unfamiliar to the well trained progressive) must quickly be put back into the bottle and sealed away.  Bad things happen for progressives if this isn’t done quickly.  You can’t compel a religious people or a religious organization to violate their own principles under pain of secular prosecution if religious principles have credibility in the public square.  No, those religious principles must be isolated, segregated and confined to church and home.  Hence, survival of liberal orthodoxy demands that religion be kept out of the public square at all cost lest it gain traction.

Al will learn that a corollary to keeping sacred thought out of the public square is to redefine religious liberty.  Religious liberty must be reduced to merely freedom of worship.  Do what you want, worship in any manner you like – I just don’t want to see it or hear it.   For the largely secular left, the concept of practicing one’s faith in public is an anathema; putting religion into practice is a wholly unwarranted exercise if you do not subscribe to a religion in the first place.  To graduate from rehab, Al needs to understand that a devoutly religious person is not permitted to participate in the body politic except as a secular being. 

Lastly, Al will have to learn how to deal with this pesky nuisance called the Constitution.  He need not worry too much.  The proscription forbidding Congress to prohibit the free exercise thereof with regard to religion is largely ignored.  The plain English understanding that laws will not prohibit the practice of religion has been interpreted, twisted and rationalized away.  Doubt it?  A public school teacher can demonstrate how to put a condom on a cucumber or describe gay sex acts to children with the concurrence of our courts, but let that same teacher suggest that the children may want to pray for world peace or give thanks to God for their many blessings and that teacher will find them self out of a job by day’s end.  Al can take note that the Constitution was written over two hundred years ago by dead white males – and it simply is not taken seriously anymore.

Al apologized for a “poor choice of words” when invoking images of the crucifixion as a metaphor for EPA policy enforcement.  I will try to choose my words more carefully:  Al, Godspeed on your journey of progressive redemption.

"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."