Rep. Mo Brooks: Religious Freedom Means I Get to Push My Faith on Everyone, 24/7

During his speech introducing Donald Trump before a MAGA rally in Alabama tonight, Rep. Mo Brooks, who just this week expressed sympathy with the views of the man who allegedly made a bomb threat near the U.S. Capitol, insisted that religious freedom meant pushing your Christian views on everyone else, even when you’re in government.

… Freedom of religion, another basic principle in the United States Constitution. The First Amendment. Evil Socialists tolerate our religious values so long as we leave them behind the doors once we leave the church! They don’t want us to carry our moral values with us 24 hours a day!

Well, discarding our moral values once the church doors close behind us, that is not freedom of religion!

You have the right to have your religious values with you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year!

If Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Muslim, said the same thing, Mo Brooks would be the first person complaining about it.

Needless to say, no one is denying Christians their beliefs at any point during the day. As an elected official, however, your job is to represent all of your constituents, not just the ones who share your religious beliefs.

Your religious views shouldn’t be an excuse to override basic laws that apply to everyone, but that’s what Republicans want. They think discrimination should be legal if their faith commands them to hate certain groups. They think mask and vaccine mandates can be ignored by citing their faith, as if the virus gives a damn what anyone believes.

If Brooks wants to live in a theocracy, he’s in the wrong country. But the crowd he’s speaking to doesn’t actually give a damn what the Constitution says. They believe the Bible — or their interpretation of it, anyway — always gives them the right to do whatever they want, whenever they want. And the Republican Party has virtually no one with the courage to set them straight.