The Clinton campaign is sorry about its string of anti-Catholic emails alright — sorry they got out. Real remorse, on the other hand, has been tough to come by. Even Sunday, a few days after Hillary Clinton’s top campaign official and communications director were implicated in the latest WikiLeaks dump, running-mate Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) wasn’t overly contrite for the offensive things campaign officials said about his own faith. Taking a turn doing damage control on ABC’s “This Week,” Kaine was asked by Martha Raddatz about the mockery of Catholicism. “Many took offense,” she argued. “…You’re Catholic. Should the campaign apologize?”

The Virginia senator, who’s made a point of putting his religion in the campaign spotlight, shrugged off the insults. “You know,” he replied, “we all have opinions and I don’t think you need to apologize for your opinions. But, in fact, that’s a great thing about our country and even about being Catholic. We have plenty of opinions. So you don’t need to apologize for an opinion, but in terms of respect for the church and people’s faith lives Hillary Clinton has that respect, because it’s what motivates her.” “I don’t think you need to apologize for your opinions?” This from a political party that not only shames people over their opinions on things like marriage but uses the government to punish them for it. It’s astounding. You don’t need to apologize or hide your opinion as long as it is liberal. The Left has made it abundantly clear that Christians are fair game for discrimination and ridicule.

No wonder why church leaders are furious. In a letter to the Clinton campaign, dozens of prominent Catholics and evangelicals called out the Democratic nominee for her refusal to express any sort of regret over the incident. “The WikiLeaks emails reveal a contempt for all traditional Christians, and we are — Catholic and Evangelical — united in our outrage and united in our call for Mrs. Clinton to immediately apologize for the Christophobic behavior of her associates.” Unfortunately, no such apology seems imminent — not when the campaign’s most prominent Catholic, Senator Kaine, is busily excusing away the hostility. “I’m very, very serious about my Catholicism,” he insisted, “and Hillary views that as a real asset. And we’ve talked about our faith lives, as she asked me to be on the ticket with her. So in terms of what Hillary Clinton, who’s running for president, thinks about Catholics and the value more broadly of having a faith background, I can tell you she views at it as a plus.”

Well, Hillary may view religion as a plus politically, but she’s shown very little use for it practically. As Secretary of State, she stood by and watched while Christians were mercilessly slaughtered for their faith. Instead, she traveled the world advocating for sexual freedom while religious freedom was on the back burner — or worse — being attacked from the inside. For years, Clinton made no secret of her disdain for the deeply held beliefs of the faith culture, arguing that religious practice should give way to make room for the Left’s radical social agenda.

On the issue of abortion, Clinton left little doubt as to where she stands. “Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper,” Clinton argued. “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs, and structural biases have to be changed.” In some ways, that view is more extreme than even President Obama’s. Although she and the current administration agree that liberals have to remove biblical Christianity from a place of influence in our country and culture, only Clinton has been so openly antagonistic by calling Americans who hold biblical views of morality as deplorable and irredeemable.

As Bill Donohue from the Catholic League pointed out on Washington Watch last week, the next best thing to eliminating religion is corrupting it. And with Senator Tim Kaine by her side, proudly rejecting the values the Church stands for, and her campaign for creating phony Catholic groups as fronts from their liberal agenda, she is well on her way. That’s more dangerous than just religious hostility. This is a fundamental effort to neutralize the influence of biblical Christianity and then transform religion into a political tool of the Left. And unless Americans wake up to the implications of this scandal — and what it means to the future of religious liberty in our nation — the last eight years will seem tame by comparison.

Originally published here.

The Law of Landry

It’s hard enough to win a government contract. Now imagine that your beliefs are a disqualifying factor! In Louisiana, that’s exactly the hostile environment Governor John Bel Edwards (D) was trying to create when he issued an executive order excluding conservatives from state partnerships. Like President Obama, Governor Edwards thinks there should be an ideological litmus test for anyone applying to contract with the government — and Christians need not apply. Earlier this year, he tried to elbow religious contractors out of state work unless they surrendered their views. Under his order, any company that wanted to contract with the Louisiana government had to first adopt special privileges for people who identify as LGBT — including policies on genderless bathrooms and showers. Essentially, applicants had a choice: They could jettison their beliefs to partner with the government or make themselves ineligible by operating according to their faith.

Fortunately for Louisiana, Attorney General Jeff Landry saw the move for what it was: an attack on the First Amendment rights of Louisiana citizens. No free country — least of all America — should punish faith-based contractors for exercising their constitutional freedoms in hiring and firing. So Landry rejected more than 40 state legal contracts, sending his office on a collision course with the governor’s that ended up in state court. “I will not cower to executive overreach; rather, I will continue to defend our Constitution and the will of the people,” Landry said in a statement.

And at least one Louisiana judge thinks he’s well within his powers to do so. In a ruling [Monday], Judge Donald Johnson dealt a serious blow to Edwards’s hopes of strong-arming government contractors. “I believe that the law is uncertain — and it does not provide the court with a clear path,” Johnson said. “The court denies the request of our governor [to bypass the Attorney General’s office on these contracts].” The decision was a huge victory — not just for conscience rights, but for Landry, who, like us, knows the governor doesn’t have the authority to force anyone to surrender their beliefs as a condition of government work.

Edwards, on the other hand, blasted the attorney general for promoting “anti-LGBT discrimination.” But under the Left’s backwards understanding of “discrimination,” that could mean anything from a statement of faith to setting certainly hiring policies or protecting people’s privacy in bathrooms! The reality is, the Left is never going to be satisfied if faith-based groups can contract with the government at all. They want to squeeze Christians out of government at the same time as they’re forcing them out of the marketplace, public square and schools. But that’s not only unconstitutional — it’s un-American. Individuals, employers and businesses have the same conscience rights as everyone else, regardless of who they’re partnering with.

Let this be a lesson to conservatives! When courageous men and women like Attorney General Landry or Governor Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) challenge the lawlessness of the Left, they win! This is exactly why more government leaders should be standing up to President Obama and refusing to let these assaults on our foundational principles go unopposed.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.