Opinion

Sen. Chuck Schumer’s religious test

Chuck Schumer has an odd view of the First Amendment.

If on the basis of religious conviction you refuse to pay for something Schumer wants you to pay for, he believes you forfeit your right to have a business.

Never mind that the Supreme Court just ruled the opposite in the Hobby Lobby case. At a press conference announcing a new bill designed to change the law that was the basis of that ruling, he put it this way:

“We wouldn’t tell the owners of Hobby Lobby to convert to a different religion or disobey their religion,” said Schumer. “But we don’t say that they have to open a company and go sell toys or hobby kits.” Businesses have no religious freedom, he said, because their “purpose is to profit from the open market.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was blunter still: “Congress must make it clear that businesses aren’t people and do not have the same rights people have.”

By that twisted logic, a family-owned kosher or halal butcher shop would have no religious grounds to challenge a law — similar to ones already enacted in Europe — that bars kosher slaughter.

Nor could those same butchers forbid an employee or customer from bringing non-kosher or non-halal food into their stores, because that would constitute imposing their beliefs.

The Constitution forbids a religious test for public office. Surely the men who drafted these protections would be aghast to see a United States senator suggesting the federal government impose one for running a business.