As is happening frequently, and I have to believe with the blessing of the administration, draft executive orders are filtering their way out. To date, the leaks have been damned near carbon copies of the final order. Today a new one appeared. This one on religious freedom.
As you know, Obama was a big proponent of defining religious freedom as the freedom of worship. In other words you were permitted to believe whatever you wished for an hour or two on Sunday. But, if you brought your bizarre little beliefs out of that “safe space” you were just asking for trouble. Trump’s draft order is about 540-degrees away from that because 180-degrees just isn’t enough of a change.
Via Erick Erickson at The Resurgent:
Here are some of the things the religious freedom executive order would do:
- It tells the entire federal government to respect federal statutes and Supreme Court decisions that make clear the free exercise of religion applies to all people, of all faiths, in all places, and at all times—that it is not merely the freedom to worship.
- It notes that religious organizations include all organizations operated by religious principles, not just houses of worship or charities. And it follows the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in saying that religious exercise “includes all aspects of religious observance and practice,” not just those absolutely required by a faith.
- It instructs all agencies of the federal government, “to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law,” to reasonably accommodate the religion of federal employees, as required by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
- It instructs the secretaries of health and human services, labor, and treasury to finally grant relief to the Little Sisters of the Poor and others who weren’t exempted from the Obamacare abortifacient and contraception mandate.
- It instructs the secretary of health and human services to ensure that all citizens have the ability to purchase health care plans through Obamacare that do not cover abortion or subsidize plans that do.
- It instructs the secretary of health and human services to ensure that the federal government does not discriminate against child-welfare providers, such as foster care and adoption services, based on the organization’s religious beliefs.
- It adopts the Russell Amendment and instructs all agencies of the federal government to provide protections and exemptions consistent with the Civil Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act to all religious organizations that contract with the federal government or receive grants.
- It instructs the secretary of the treasury to ensure that it does not revoke nonprofit tax status because a religious organization’s ordinary religious speech deals with politics, or because it speaks or acts on the belief that marriage is the union of husband and wife, that a person’s sex is based on immutable biology, or that life begins at conception.
- It instructs all agencies of the federal government to refuse to recognize any decision by a federally recognized accrediting body that revokes or denies accreditation to an organization because of such beliefs.
- It instructs all agencies that they may not take adverse action against federal employees, contractors, or grantees because of their speech about marriage outside of their employment, contract, or grant, and that agencies shall reasonably accommodate such beliefs inside of employment, contract, or grant.
If you don’t need a cigarette at this point I don’t want to ever talk to you again. And if you have any doubt about how awesome this is, just look at Twitter:
Spicer just reiterated White House support for "religious freedom" for small business. A veil for LGBT discrimination. #Protest #Resist
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) February 2, 2017
Discrimination under the guise of ‘religious freedom’ is still discrimination, @potus
Read more: https://t.co/iwl3CtOYqF
— ACLU (@ACLU) February 2, 2017
Leaked Draft of Trump’s Religious Freedom Order Reveals Sweeping Plans to Legalize Discrimination https://t.co/tibXnwmNMs
— Southern Poverty Law Center (@splcenter) February 2, 2017
Oh what fresh hell is this: Leaked Draft of Trump’s Religious Freedom Order. https://t.co/5FNHse7ze6
— Adam Savage (@donttrythis) February 2, 2017
If Trump signs this your LGBTQ friends, family, colleagues lose their rights. If you do not resist, you're complicit https://t.co/yXvG2XYCyg
— Beau Willimon (@BeauWillimon) February 2, 2017
My gosh, I am drained and exhausted and thoroughly satiated… and did I mention “moist.” Yes, I’m moist, too.
What the opponents of this are bellyaching about is not “discrimination.” They are complaining because virtually no one will have the ability to force another to honor sexual perversion as the price of being allowed employment and people who don’t need birth control, like Catholic women religious, won’t have to buy insurance policies that covers them.
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