This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
"Only the little people pay taxes." — Leona Helmsley
And, according to the results of a poll released the other day, only the big religions really have First Amendment freedoms.
The survey, from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, suggests that when many people think about the supposedly guaranteed freedom of religion in the United States, they think only — or mostly — of their religion. Other faiths, not so much.
The results of the poll show that 82 percent of those surveyed said that religious liberty protections were due to Christians. But the number fell to about 70 percent who favored such safeguards for Jews, 67 percent for Mormons and 61 percent for Muslims, about the same as the number who would extend such freedom of conscience to people who identify with no religion.
The difference in how many people seem to view the religious rights of one group as opposed to another is disturbing. Freedom of religion is freedom for all religions, or it isn't freedom. It's permission, granted either by some authority or by majority vote. Which exactly what we were trying to avoid by putting religious freedom — along with press freedom, free speech, free assembly, all that jazz — into the Constitution instead of just passing a law that could be repealed or adopting a resolution that could be ignored.
It is also curious that, in a nation that is supposedly so overwhelmingly Christian, as many as 18 percent of those polled didn't see constitutionally protected religious rights as due to the many sects and subdivisions of that faith tradition.
Is it that those folks are of other religions? Or that they see Christianity's superior numbers as being such a potent protection that any legal or constitutional provision are unnecessary?
Perhaps we can take comfort in the fact that — even as most of the news reports that use the word "Muslim" in any way these days also include words such as "radical" or "Islamist," or include a tally of people killed — the number of people who support religious rights for Muslims is still well above half. A candidate receiving 61 percent in any election would be seen to have received a landslide of support.
That's slim solace, though, for anyone who really believes in the whole concept of freedom of religion, and knows that belief isn't being applied to real life unless the numbers supporting it for each faith group are the same, and darn close to 100 percent.
It all recalls the infamous Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. That's the one where Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion upheld the right of a private company's owners to stay away from any employee insurance plan that covered certain kinds of contraception because to pay for it would violate a "sincerely held religious belief" that such things were really abortion and thus in violation of the dictates of their faith.
When challenged to say why the same judicial logic would not allow those with different, but just as sincerely held, religious beliefs to refuse to pay for, say, vaccinations, blood transfusions or psychiatric treatment, Alito just said it wouldn't. He didn't even attempt to explain the difference.
But the only difference can be that some demanded religious exemptions from general laws are granted because the religion involved is either a majority or a favored or politically powerful minority. Little religions, such as those that may abhor any other aspect of modern medicine, may be safely swept aside in favor of laws passed by the majority.
Again, when that happens, religious freedom isn't a constitutional principle. It's a permit that can be granted or denied based on, well, almost anything the powerful say it can.
It is sadly possible that the tiny minority of Muslims who think they are commanded by their faith to kill certain people have managed to convince nearly 40 percent of the American electorate that, indeed, that is what Islam means. And if they were right, then, of course, limiting that freedom of religion would be a good idea.
But murder, mass and otherwise, is already against the law, with no religious exemption.
George Pyle, a Tribune editorial writer, once tried to get out of gym class on religious grounds. gpyle@sltrib.com