When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s, he was struck by how radically it differed from France. In his home country, the partisans of religion and the partisans of liberty were starkly opposed. Philosophes openly scoffed at the faith; Catholics rejected liberty altogether. In America, by contrast, he discovered the union of “two perfectly distinct elements that elsewhere are often at war”, namely “the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty”.
I doubt he would say the same thing today. Last week at a CNN forum on LGBT issues, Democratic presidential candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke was asked whether he would revoke the tax exemptions of religious institutions that don’t support gay marriage. It is remarkable that CNN would ask this question. It is even more remarkable that O’Rourke unhesitatingly said yes.
