Religious liberty is being redefined as Christian right to dominate public square

Evidence

In their view, religious liberty should no longer refer to the right of any citizen to practice or not practice religion without governmental interference. Rather, they seek to redefine religious liberty as the right to bring privately held religious beliefs into the public square. — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 250

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the contested redefinition of ‘religious liberty’ as distinct from its prior meaning of freedom from governmental interference.
• ADDENDUM: Parallels how moral-panic rhetoric and ideological terms get repurposed as instruments of class/identity signaling; connects to the scaffolding of ‘Who owns the definition’ question.
• XREF: Connects to Ambedkar/Annihilation of Caste passages about reframing religion-as-law as a definitional weapon, and to the Oxford handbook material on contested definitions of Islamophobia. — connects to: Claims of a Christian founding are strategically deployed to privilege present-day values — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 203; Christian nationalists read the First Amendment as one-directional church protection — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 153; The Christian Right has long openly pursued suppression of rival voters — Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian…, 311 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Christian nationalists read the First Amendment as one-directional church protection #expands (0.85) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 153
• The Religious Right’s religious-freedom framing masked its defense of segregation #corroborates (0.84) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 112
• Religious liberty doctrine now licenses minority-led establishment of the dominant religion #expands (0.82) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 842
• Religious liberty is deployed as a temporary tactic toward theocracy. #expands (0.80) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 481
• A transnational religious right seeks to replace democracies with faith-based ethno-states #corroborates (0.80) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 959
• Religious claims anchor constitutional inequality and block democratic equality. #corroborates (0.80) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 565
• The Christian Right has long openly pursued suppression of rival voters #corroborates (0.78) — Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross, 311
• Religious establishment was legally redefined as private individual speech #expands (0.76) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 839