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NastyRiffraff

(12,448 posts)
Tue Dec 27, 2016, 11:56 AM Dec 2016

Finally! Some good news (thank you, President Obama)

With One Pen Stroke President Obama Protects Non-Believers from Religious Republicans

President Obama signed into law the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act that, among many other things, “protects atheists, humanists, and other freethinkers around the world [including America] from religious persecution.” What that means for American Secular Humanists, agnostics, atheists and other nonreligious persons is that they are now explicitly named as “a class” protected by an “Act” that was quietly and unceremoniously signed into law last week. The new law was an update, and a much-needed upgrade, to the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act that states:

“The freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is understood to protect theistic and non-theistic beliefs as well as the right not to profess or practice any religion.”

Of particular note is the Act’s explicit condemnation of any group or government entity that specifically “targets non-theists, humanists, and atheists because of their beliefs” as well as attempts to forcibly legislate or compel “non-believers or non-theists to recant their beliefs or to convert.”


This has gotten exactly zero attention from the MSM, so I thought I'd post it here as well as elsewhere. As far as I know, it's the first law that explicitly protects nonbelievers as a class.
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Finally! Some good news (thank you, President Obama) (Original Post) NastyRiffraff Dec 2016 OP
If it was passed by Republicans, mountain grammy Dec 2016 #1
Wow. Thanks very much for writing this. I hadn't heard anything abouit it. -nt Freelancer Jan 2017 #2

mountain grammy

(26,598 posts)
1. If it was passed by Republicans,
Tue Dec 27, 2016, 01:15 PM
Dec 2016

I'm immediately suspicious. But will look it up and trust that Obama wouldn't sign anything to kill us.

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