Remember the part about separation of’ church and state’?
Oh, and does ANYONE think that Sessions is gonna afford Muslims that same effort?
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that the Department of Justice is creating a “religious liberty task force.”
Sessions said the task force, co-chaired by Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio and the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, Beth Williams, will help the department fully implement the religious liberty guidance it issued last year.
The guidance was a byproduct of President Trump’s executive order directing agencies to respect and protect religious liberty and political speech.
Sessions said on Monday that the task force will “ensure 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.”
The announcement came during the department’s religious liberty summit.
Sessions said the cultural climate in this country — and in the West more generally — has become less hospitable to people of faith in recent years, and as a result many Americans have felt their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack…..
I’m entirely supportive of religious liberty (despite being — or perhaps even more because — I have no religious beliefs or affiliations of my own); after all it’s the second item in the First Amendment.
But of course I wish there were a similar Justice Dept effort and division to protect press freedom and political freedom, including the “right of the People peaceably to assemble, to petition their Government for redress of grievances”.
Dave’s comment surprised me a bit. Do you really think that Sessions wants to protect religious liberty?
Let’s just say that Sessions statement that nuns were ordered to buy contraceptives is off-the-chart a lie. And if an insurance company is pricing a policy for an order of nuns, the price will reflect that few – if any nuns – will require a contraceptive.
And if conservatives want the right to discriminate against gay people or other minorities that they hate, then religious liberals have a right to discriminate against people who advocate hate. How about this? A better idea is for neither religious conservatives nor religious liberals should have the right to discriminate. Frankly, discrimination on either side just makes the country more divided. That seems obvious to me.
No, I realize the aim of Jeff Sessions’ move are quite different from what most of us would consider to be religious liberty and closer to the establishment of religion forbidden by the very first words of the First Amendment.
(On the other hand, I don’t find all of those questions all that easy to answer.)
I just think it’s inconsistent for the Justice Dept to set up a unit just for religious liberty without establishing one to protect privacy (Fourth Amendment) or the rights to speak, publish and assemble.
Religious politics by the government isn’t what the people who set this place up wanted….