Can someone please explain to me what exactly is a "religious liberty task force"? I ask because apparently Jeff Sessions and the trump administration just formed one."WASHINGTON (CNN) - Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday announced the Department of Justice's creation of a "religious liberty task force" to "help the department fully implement our religious guidance."
In a speech at the Department of Justice's Religious Liberty Summit in Washington, Sessions said the goal of the task force will be protecting religious groups from persecution.
"The task force will help the department fully implement our religious liberty guidance by ensuring that all Justice Department components are upholding that guidance in the cases they bring and defend, the arguments they make in court, the policies and regulations they adopt and how we conduct our operations," Sessions said. "That includes making sure that our employees know their duties to accommodate people of faith."
Sessions cited "a dangerous movement" aimed toward stripping away the First Amendment right to freedom of religion as a basis for forming the new task force." [Source]
This is interesting, since it would seem to be that it is trump and his attorney general who are "stripping away" the First Amendment" by trampling all over the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. Some Americans love Thomas Jefferson but not necessarily his words: "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."
Clearly Mr. trump and his overzealous AG have no intention of keeping the wall between church and state intact. A true president who cares about the Constitution would spend his time and energy protecting this wall, and not trying to build one to keep out immigrants coming in from our Southern border.
Make no mistake, folks, this latest stunt from the AG and the president is a lame attempt to push their version of religion down our throats. "A dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom," ...There can be no doubt. This is no little matter. It must be confronted and defeated."
What movement? The movement of the people who might not believe in your god, and who might want to worship Allah, Buddah, or Haile Selassie I? Or, who might want to worship at the church of Emayatzy Corinealdi for Christ sake?! (For the record, that happens to be my church.) What if you happen to be an atheist or agnostic? Will this so-called task force protect you then?
I wish I could say that this too will pass, but it won't. Because, as I write this post, trump is stacking the courts up and down with dimwitted conservative zealots. These are people who share some of his dangerous totalitarian views when it comes to religion and other social issues.
The irony is, of course, that there is not a religious bone in trump's body. This is all a scam to shore up his base and keep his 35% loyal to him. If these people were really as religious as they claim, and if they had some real connection to their god or whatever higher being they worship, they would be able to spot the con from a mile away. Of course we all know that they won't, because the brilliance of the con is that it understands that deep down inside their love of power and control is more powerful than any religion that they claim to follow.
Fortunately, it doesn't take a task force to figure that out.
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