True religious liberty; farewell, Winn-Dixie.

During the Senate confirmation hearings for Mike Pompeo, Sen. Cory Booker demonized him for his position of not affirming gay marriage and his position that Muslims in America should have some obligation in condemning and preventing terrorism.

We have been confused in America between religious liberty and religious tolerance versus coerced religious endorsement and religious intolerance. Religious tolerance and religious liberty are similar and are what we should support. Coerced religious endorsement and religious intolerance are evils that we should never support and should condemn.

Of the five definitions of religion in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, only one refers to God. The other four refer to secular religiosity. We are referring to the broad definition here. Typically, promoters of secular religious positions, such as Booker takes, consider only the narrow definition that unjustifiably makes them exempt from the condemnation they “dish out” on people who are no more religious than they are.

Believing in religious liberty for any religious positions means that we tolerate positions we do not agree with and are not coercive in respect to forcing them to our position. What Booker did was to condemn Pompeo for his religious positions, thus not granting him religious freedom, while at the same time coercing Pompeo to endorse his religious position.

It is the height of hypocrisy to demand that others endorse our religious position when we don’t even tolerate their position, let alone endorse it. Bill Nitardy The Villages