NE Senate Nominee: Religion Overrules Law

Republican Ben Sasse is slated to win one of Nebraska’s Senate seats this November. If he is successful, he will bring with him a staunch belief in absolute religious liberty—that freedom of religion can justify breaking the law. Sasse’s website explains this philosophy in detail, writing that the GOP Senate nominee “believes that our right to the free exercise of religion is co-equal to our right to life. This is not a negotiable issue. Government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances. He will fight for the right of all Americans to act in accordance with their conscience.” ThinkProgress puts this in context by pointing out the practice of “honor killings,” the religiously motivated murders that claim the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands of women every year in the U.S. and around the world. “Under Sasse’s formulation of religious liberty, a person who killed his own sister because he believed he was under a religious obligation to do so would be immune from prosecution for murder,” ThinkProgress writes.