I see a lot of fellow Christians who are stunned at other Christians who are framing the stay at home orders as a violation of religious freedom. Some are even pressing legal suits to fight for the right to keep hosting services.

But here’s what so many of you are missing.

When the ADA was becoming a law, churches and Christians schools successfully lobbied to be *exempted* from the new requirements. What were their main arguments?

First, that it would be a violation of their religious freedom if they were not given the absolute right to discriminate against certain disabilities in their hiring practices, and that they alone should be allowed to determine which disabilities they would not accept.

If you don’t think that’s true, please google & do your own education on this one. And if you think “that was back then, we’ve changed?” Read up on Supreme Court case Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.)

Second, they argued that being required to make their buildings fully accessible would ALSO be a violation of their religious freedom, because it would be difficult and expensive and it was “unfair” to expect that of them.

This was of course the same argument being made by ALL businesses against the new law - that it would be expensive and difficult to make themselves accessible. But lawmakers had determined that wasn’t reason enough to exclude an entire segment of the population from public life.

But in the cases of churches/Christian schools, they framed it as an issue of specifically *religious* freedom - and in the end they were granted their special exemption.

They were the ONLY group to be given legally enshrined special privilege to continue discriminating.

So when I see abled Christians who are “shocked” to see some of their fellow Christians framing this as a religious freedom issue, and essential fighting for the right to hurt other people in the name of their “liberty” being preserved above all else?

It tells me that you don’t recognize that this is NOT a new thing. This is a continuation of the same sort of thinking that led to the ADA exemption (and every subsequent legal battle to defend and even expand the protections of that exemption.)

Churches have repeatedly asserted that their right to harm certain others without legal impunity is a religious liberty issue - including disabled ppl, LGBTQ+ ppl, and Black ppl. This is nothing new. This is not “shocking.”

So respectfully, if you find yourself “shocked” at people fighting to keep holding services in the pandemic? Recognize that you’ve been living in a bubble of privilege, where you could remain blissfully unaware of our history of fighting for special rights to harm others.

This is not a bunch of fringe cases we can simply disregard as “they aren’t really true Christians” or “they are extremists, we aren’t like that.” This is an institutional level sin we need to collectively name, acknowledge, lament, and repent.

I believe in the right to practice our faith freely. I believe in the 1st amendment. But I will never believe Christ called us to fight for special privileges above what our neighbors are entitled to - ESPECIALLY when those privileges come at the direct expense of harm of others.