President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for health secretary said in 2017 that institutions do not merit the same religious freedom protections under the Constitution as individuals, video footage shows.
During his 2017 confirmation hearings to become attorney general of California, Xavier Becerra was questioned on religious freedom protections by Assemblyman James Gallagher, according to video footage posted by the California Family Council.
Gallagher pushed Becerra to explain his stances on legislation such as SB 1146 requiring private religious universities to modify their faith-based codes or face penalizations.
“On religious protections, the protection for religion is for the individual,” Becerra told Gallagher.
“I think it is important to distinguish between protections that you are affording to the individual to exercise his or her religion freely,” Becerra said, “versus protections you are giving to some institution or entity who is essentially bootstrapping the first amendment protections on behalf of somebody else.”
