Albert Mohler notes a USA Today opinion column recently calling on the US government to use the power of the purse to force nondiscrimination policies on houses of worship:

Asra Q. Nomani, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, argues that the Internal Revenue Service should move to deny tax-exempt status to any place of worship that holds to different roles for men and women. In “End Gender Apartheid in U.S. Mosques,” Nomani writes, “I’ve come to the difficult decision that women must use the legal system to restore rights in places of worship..”

As Mohler notes, Asra Nomani isn’t advocating for those in her Islamic faith to alter their practices; she’s calling for action by the US government.  He also highlighted a glaring absence in Nomani’s treatise: 

The most amazing fact of all is not what is present in Nomani’s column, but what is absent. There is no reference at all to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — not one word. The First Amendment includes the crucial wording that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Of course, whether one agrees with them or not, the distinctive roles and responsiblities of the genders are part of the theology of the overwhelming majority of the world’s population, and

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution expressly forbids the Federal government from (among other things) dictating theology to the nation’s religious bodies.

Religious freedom is a liberty allowing men and women to worship freely, without the government’s interjection.  Nomani has that freedom as well, but it seems rather than exercise it, she wants others’ freedom to be restricted.

Unfortunately, that wrong and convoluted sense of “liberty” is not uncommon in this modern era — even (or perhaps especially) for those discussing religious freedom in the US military.