In previous columns I’ve mentioned that one of my favorite features found on the Colorado Politics website is the Out West Roundup. It’s a great place to get caught up on a wide variety of news across our region. But there is another roundup section I want to recommend to you, and that is the Court Crawl section. These days court rulings on a wide range of subjects can impact our lives, or at least stir the emotions. A recent story discussed the confusing and frustrating ruling that appears to leave the TABOR law intact, though as the story notes, there were multiple opinions from the various judges hearing the appeal, and legal scholars will be arguing about those issues for some time to come. This is clearly an important case.

But I’m not going to talk about that today…

Instead, I want to draw your attention to another case mentioned on CP this week, which dealt with food and inmate rights. Now, when folks who are locked up for breaking the law get upset about some aspect of their incarceration, it is not uncommon for “regular” people to react with anger, disgust or, at best, indifference. After all, if they wanted their rights respected, they shouldn’t have broken the law, right?

But as I used to teach my cadets at the US Air Force Academy, the test of whether you truly believe in the Constitution is not when you support the easy stuff like the right to say, “Huzzah for America!” (though my regular reader – Hi Jeff – will see what I did there, because no question of basic rights is simple or easy). Rather, the test of whether one truly supports the basic rights given to us as Americans comes when you also support those rights for people you find repellent or ideas you find disgusting.

Which, of course, brings me to the food service team at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility near Ordway in southeast Colorado.

The case cited in CP deals with a Muslim inmate of that facility, and his requests for a diet that is consistent with his religious beliefs. A federal judge found that Ray Smith, the inmate in question, had plausibly alleged that the Colorado Department of Corrections and a few workers at the Arkansas Valley facility had violated his rights when they cancelled his religious diet. The case he filed can now proceed.

Well, if you are looking for things that will trigger a bunch of people in this now all-too-Trumpian world, it likely is an issue surrounding an inmate who is a Muslim. Recall please that then-candidate Trump once called for a ban on Muslims entering the US (a call he refused to apologize for later as president). There are many, many statements and actions by Trump that will most certainly mar his reputation for future generations, and one of these deficiencies will be his ongoing demonization of Islam, but I digress…

And so, I suspect, dear readers, there are those among you who feel it is entirely acceptable for a prison to deny a diet (or other aspects) required by an Islamic religious belief.

But, my friends, it doesn’t end there.

One of the great things about the Founders was in their ability to see that the rights they wished enshrined in our Constitution and, frankly, in our personal belief systems, should be human rights for all Americans, not rights only for those who believed in a particular world or religious view. Recall, please, those remarkable words by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence assert that all men (and now, of course women) are created equal and are endowed… you know how it goes.

Fundamentally, our government, be it the president or a guy serving lunch to inmates, can’t pick and choose who gets what rights when (I know it is more complicated with prisoners, who do, in fact, give up some rights, but bear with me for a sec…). And if you are OK with denying a Muslim something, like a diet, that he or she deeply believes is what God has demanded, then you are OK with the government denying anyone any and all religious protections. It is far too easy to give into gut feelings that allow the suppression of the rights of others, but as history has shown us many times over, that pendulum swings both ways.

For those of you who are basically OK with denying Smith his religious diet, would you be equally sanguine about a different jailer who decided that the Christian inmates would not be allowed communion (it’s a food after all)? Would you be OK with a rule that inmates can keep a copy of the Quran in their cells, but no Bible?

There is a reason the Bill of Rights states fundamental protections right up front. While governance must be rooted in popular consent, it should be free from popular whim. When events and times cause popular opinion to swing away from liberty for some section of our population it is time for those who truly believe in the Constitution to stand up and demand action.

And give the guy his religious meal.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.