Liberal fascism oppose free speech, religion

Washington Examiner Editorial:

Two events last week point to a disturbing development: Liberals are conducting a thinly veiled war on the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of religion and political speech. The liberal objective is to silence the voices of conservatives and evangelicals in American public life. If the campaign is successful, liberals in power will be able to work their will unfettered by such bulwarks of limited government as individual conscience, checks and balances, and democratic compromise.

First, the liberal Guardian newspaper published dozens of confidential funding proposals submitted to the State Policy Network, a coalition of free-market think tanks, by a number of conservative political advocacy groups. The Guardian did so in conjunction with the Texas Observer and the Portland Press Herald. They published the documents ostensibly “to give readers and news outlets full and fair access to state-by-state conservative plans that could have significant impact throughout the U.S., and to allow the public to reach its own conclusions about whether these activities comply with the spirit of non-profit tax-exempt charities. Details of the coordinated approach come amid growing federal scrutiny of the political activities of tax-exempt charities.”

In fact, the Guardian is conflating “political activities” such as voting and partisan campaigning with political advocacy such as analyses of legislative proposals, publishing books and web posts. The latter are perfectly legal for all of the groups that submitted the proposals published by the Guardian, yet the mention of federal scrutiny implies otherwise. This federal scrutiny, of course, is the Obama administration’s use of the IRS to harass conservative, Tea Party and evangelical political advocacy groups.

Second, as the Washington Examiner's Joel Gehrke reported, the Center for American Progress - a liberal political advocacy group - hosted a discussion panel that included the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, who is president of the Interfaith Alliance. Gaddy said “people are using the term ‘liberty' when they really mean ‘my liberty, your slavery.'” His statement is of a piece with the view of liberals who believe that Christians practicing their faith cannot do so without oppressing somebody else.
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What the Guardian story was really about is an attempt by liberals to find out who is funding conservative groups so they can engage in stalking for those funding sources in an attempt to defund conservatives.  We saw them do this with Romney voters in 2012.   The attacks on religious people is also part of the left's attempts to fight those who disapprove of their agenda and are willing to vote against.