Bill Barr suggests non-religious people can’t ‘discipline themselves according to moral values’

Attorney General William Barr is worried that atheists are conducting “an organized, militant, secular effort” to undermine religion “in the marketplace of ideas.” That’s what he told New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan in an interview Wednesday, according to the National Review.

Appearing on Dolan’s Sirius XM radio show Conversation with Cardinal Dolan, Barr had this to say:

“The problem today is not that religious people are trying to impose their views on non-religious people. It’s the opposite — it’s that militant secularists are trying to impose their values on religious people, and they’re not accommodating the freedom of religion of people of faith.”

Barr chastised Democrats for pressuring religious employers to violate their beliefs and also criticized them for their ongoing efforts to increase abortion access. Barr has used his position as Attorney General to air his views on encroachment of religious freedom before. He was broadly criticized for an October speech at Notre Dame Law School for a speech in which he claimed religious Americans “face social, educational, and professional ostracism.”

He told Dolan that the Founding Fathers adhered to “the centrality of religion to the health of America Democracy” and that losing that religious conviction is dangerous for the U.S.

“We believe in the separation of church and state,” Barr said. “But what permits a limited government and minimal command and control of the population — and allows people to have freedom of choice in their lives and trust in the people is the fact that they are a people that are capable of disciplining themselves according to moral values.”

Here’s what Barr had to say below.

 

Megan Hamilton

Megan Hamilton has traveled extensively throughout the Southern United States, Mexico, and parts of Central America. A lifelong atheist, these travels have informed her political views. She currently lives in a remote location with a large herd of cats and four dogs.