Leaked Draft of Trumps Religious Freedom Order Reveals Sweeping Plans to Legalize Discrimination

[rug]

If signed, the order would create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity.

By Sarah Posner
YESTERDAY 7:11 PM

A leaked copy of a draft executive order titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” obtained by The Investigative Fund and The Nation, reveals sweeping plans by the Trump administration to legalize discrimination.

The four-page draft order, a copy of which is currently circulating among federal staff and advocacy organizations, construes religious organizations so broadly that it covers “any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations,” and protects “religious freedom” in every walk of life: “when providing social services, education, or healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with Federal, State or local governments.”

The draft order seeks to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act. The White House did not respond to requests for comment, but when asked Monday about whether a religious freedom executive order was in the works, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters, “I’m not getting ahead of the executive orders that we may or may not issue. There is a lot of executive orders, a lot of things that the president has talked about and will continue to fulfill, but we have nothing on that front now.”

Language in the draft document specifically protects the tax-exempt status of any organization that “believes, speaks, or acts (or declines to act) in accordance with the belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, sexual relations are properly reserved for such a marriage, male and female and their equivalents refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human life begins at conception and merits protection at all stages of life.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/leaked-draft-of-trumps-religious-freedom-order-reveals-sweeping-plans-to-legalize-discrimination/

The draft executive order: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3441057-20170201151132485.html

[beachbum bob]

1. no surprise and little can be done until 2018

elections have consequences

[rug]

3. This proposed order is so vast in its application there will be hundreds of lawsuits within days.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Until Trump gets a second nominee on the USSC, this law would be unconstitutional whether it

originated as an executive order, a congressional statute, or a state statute.

[rug]

4. I agree.

Gorsuch's particular interest is in religion which I suspect is why he was picked over Hardiman.

[guillaumeb]

5. "Closely held for-profit corporations"

Now, in addition to being persons, with all the rights of persons, corporate entities can be believers?

Well on the road to a Christian theocracy.

Recommended.

[edhopper]

6. well

His SCOTUS pick will be the deciding vote to uphold the law.

[rug]

7. Yeah. He upheld Hobby Lobby at the Circuit Court of Appeals.