When I wrote my 2013 novel about the threat posed by the far right and its theocratic objectives, one of the heroic characters campaigning for separation of church and state says he would defend with his life the freedom of conscience and religion of all Americans, including his opponents. 

This used to be my view, until “religion” came to mean something very different.   Take Greg Locke, the pastor at the Global Vision Bible Church near Nashville, who, as reported by the Washington Post, has stated the following during his “sermons”: the pandemic is “fake,” the death count is “manipulated,” and the vaccine is a “dangerous scam” made of “aborted fetal tissue.”   This week, he went a step further: “Don’t believe this delta variant nonsense.” If “you start showing up [with] all these masks and all this nonsense, I will ask you to leave.”   Lest you think his views on COVID and vaccination are not political, he has clarified his position, preaching to his congregation that  President Biden is “a sex trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel.” 

This man and his views are not simply tolerated, they are subsidized by the tax deductibility of contributions to his “church” that permit his hate-filled bilge to be amplified and spread.  And because he speaks under the cloak of “religion” his speech and actions are increasingly exempted from laws that would otherwise render them illegal.

Under both global norms and traditional Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, freedom of expression has been limited in situations where necessary to prevent harm to others.   Examples include libel and slander, obscenity, sedition, incitement to unlawful behavior, disclosure of classified information or trade secrets, copyright violation, the right to privacy, public security, perjury, practicing medicine without a license, etc.   And we all remember learning that falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is not tolerated, because the resulting injuries and deaths are foreseeable.   But yell “God told me there’s a fire,” and it’s OK?

If we had access to the relevant statistics we could calculate the probable number of people who will die because “Pastor” Locke convinced his flock that the pandemic is a “fake” and that God requires them to remain unvaccinated.    But now consider that roughly a third of Americans attend similar services, and the number of resulting deaths is in the hundreds of thousands.   This type of religion kills.  And to permit, privilege and subsidize it – when the nation’s number one public health and economic priority is to achieve high rates of vaccination – is insane.  

We’ve seen this all before.  Frederick Douglass, in his magnificent July 4 (actually July 5) address in 1852 called out the American church’s perversion of Christianity in support of slavery: “These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form.”