With the midterm elections coming up in the fall, candidates hoping to win this week’s primaries have been releasing the highly anticipated political attack ads. Every year, political candidates come up with interesting, sometimes silly, arguments to either vote for them, or not vote for the opposition.

But what is different about the ads this year is that they do not directly indict an opposing candidate. With Nebraska being a very conservative state, one would think that Conservative candidates hoping to get into office would be trying to prop their own platforms above their running mates. But in the primary debates, many candidates spent more time agreeing over how much they oppose certain political agendas, most commonly noted was ‘Obamacare.’

A recent commercial put out by Attorney General Jon Bruning, who is running for Nebraska governor, claims that the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, infringes on religious freedoms because it mandates that some (a very small amount) of taxpayer dollars will be spent federally funding abortions. The commercial claims, “governor Bruning will make sure Nebraskans of faith are never forced to compromise their religious beliefs by having to pay for abortions under Obamacare,” as if right to life is a religious doctrine that always must be upheld.

To be theologically correct is almost impossible, as there are infinitely many interpretations to be made from “The Bible.” Two people from the same faith can have completely different views on a subject, so the polarity between being religiously moral or reprehensible does not actually exist. Infringement of religious freedoms has become a cop-out argument in politics, so someone can claim that if they don’t like a certain political agenda, it infringes on their religious freedoms.

A good example of this is Arizona’s SB1062 that was the axis of much controversy earlier this year. The bill would allow Arizona business owners to deny service to LGBTQ people, as long as denying them service was solely out of religious beliefs. The backers of the bill claim that their religious rights are being compromised by having to serve gay and lesbian people. Although the bill was vetoed by the governor of Arizona, this bill may claim to protect religious freedoms, but the bigoted undertones of the bill show why religious agendas in politics is not a good thing, because in this case and others, it serves to directly discriminate on certain populations, and compromise their civil liberties.

Many minority groups, such as Blacks, Native Americans and the LGBTQ movement are still striving to have equal civil rights to those who are complaining about their religious freedoms being harmed. And to religious freedoms, it is not a matter of survival, but rather a criticism of other people’s beliefs that don’t necessarily share the same values.

Should we ever compromise civil liberties in order to uphold religious freedoms? Never.

It can be looked at as the choice to either be morally responsible or attempt to be theologically correct. The latter option assumes that there is a universalized truth that theological correctness upholds, but this truth does not exist. The option to be morally responsible will always ensure that one is making decisions to promote values of equality, and this is always the better option.