A couple of months ago, I became aware of a religious liberty and property rights issue up in Sandy Springs, a new city just north of Atlanta. Normally, this wouldn’t really warrant an entry on SWGAPolitics.com, because even with the religious liberty and property rights issues, it is a local issue up there and cities all across the State and nation take similar actions with alarming regularity.
What makes Sandy Springs a bit more important is that one of its City Councilmen is running for statewide office – specifically, Doug MacGinnitie and the office of Secretary of State.
The basic story is this: A church (in this case, a Scientologist church) buys a piece of property and wants to renovate it to suit their religious needs. Some neighbors get pissed off, and take the issue to their local city council, who denies the church’s religious liberty and property rights and sides with the neighbors.
But it wasn’t the entire City Council. In fact, the 6 voting members were split down the middle, with the Mayor casting the deciding vote against the church.
But which side was Doug MacGinnitie on? Did this Secretary of State candidate side with religious liberty and private property rights, or did he side with those who wish to deny these rights?
Per this AJC article, he sided with those who wish to DENY religious liberty and private property rights.
This leads to legitimate questions about his candidacy for statewide office. If similar issues arise where he has to decide on matters of religious liberty, will he side with liberty, or will he decide – as he did here – that religious liberty can be dictated by mob rule?
One solution to the problem the neighbors had with the Scientologist church was one that would have respected religious liberty, property rights, AND the mob’s wishes:
Have someone else buy the property from the church.
However, we see no record of this option ever being explored, even though it is among the most common-sense solutions to these types of problems. Indeed, I’ve known people who buy at least one of the lots adjacent to them when buying a piece of property, just so they don’t have to worry about what the neighbors may do. Why was this option apparently not explored here?
Did the potential Secretary of State not have enough wisdom to seek solutions “outside the box”?
When it comes to issues of religious liberty and private property rights conflicting with the will of the majority, even the Founding Fathers had difficulty in determining which side of that line to stand on – so they did a fine job of standing firmly astride it, siding with neither group.
If Doug MacGinnitie is to be our next Secretary of State, I sincerely hope he can learn from their wisdom.
