HomeCommentaryReligious liberty: Trump can't have it both ways

Religious liberty: Trump can’t have it both ways

Date:

January 5, 2017

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Republican nominee Donald Trump speaks at "Joni's Roast and Ride" in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., August 27, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

By Mark Azzara

I hope, in 2017, for a resolution to the glaring conflict that Donald Trump brings with him into the White House.

On the one hand he favors religious liberty via elimination of regulations that limit the right of Christians to express and practice their faith. But he also opposes religious liberty by demanding that Muslims register and/or be monitored because they pose a terrorist threat.

Trump can’t have it both ways, and it will be up to the courts and possibly Congress to decide which way will prevail. Christians can’t have rights that are denied to Muslims or any other religious group. And Muslims’ rights cannot be limited without also limiting the rights of Christians.

To legally favor Christians over other religions is to create, in effect, a theocracy.

Mark Azzara

Mark Azzara spent 45 years in print journalism, most of them with the Waterbury Republican in Connecticut, where he was a features writer with a special focus on religion at the time of his retirement. He also worked for newspapers in New Haven and Danbury, Conn. At the latter paper, while sports editor, he won a national first-place writing award on college baseball. Azzara also has served as the only admissions recruiter for a small Catholic college in Connecticut and wrote a self-published book on spirituality, "And So Are You." He is active in his church and facilitates two Christian study groups for men. Azzara grew up in southern California, graduating from Cal State Los Angeles. He holds a master's degree from the University of Connecticut.

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