Religious Right Divided Over Trump's Executive Order
Some say it's just dandy, while others consider it next to nothing.
BY TRUDY RING
MAY 06 2017 7:06 AM EDT
Members of the far right love — and hate — Donald Trump’s “religious freedom” executive order.
Some activists and commentators from the extremist wing of conservatism see the Thursday order as a safety net for Christian business owners “victimized” by LGBT folks who sue over discrimination. Others see it as next to nothing, or even less than that.
“An Army of militant atheists and LGBT activists are hell-bent on eradicating Christianity from the public marketplace and punishing Christians who follow the teachings of Christ,” Todd Starnes, a columnist, radio host, and Fox News contributor, wrote Thursday on his website. “That’s why President Trump signed an executive order on religious liberty today in the Rose Garden — to protect Americans who have been targeted by a politically correct lynch mob.”
These, he says, include Washington State florist Barronelle Stutzman, who a court ruled had violated the state’s antidiscrimination law by refusing to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding, and the Vander Boon family, owners of a meatpacking plant in Michigan, who were ordered by federal inspectors to remove religious materials from the plant’s break room.
But Brian Brown, president of the anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage, wrote in a blog post and fundraising pitch, “While containing some helpful provisions for pastors and religious medical providers, falls far short of what is needed to protect people of faith from governmental persecution set in motion by the Obama administration. Instead, he has punted the issue to the Department of Justice which, he says, will develop new rules to protect the religious liberty rights of people and groups.”
That punt to the Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is what worries many supporters of LGBT and reproductive rights, and civil liberties in general, given Sessions’s history of hostility to those rights. “The Attorney General shall, as appropriate, issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in Federal law,” this portion of the order reads. But it remains unclear exactly what the department will do — plus discrimination complaints like those against Stutzman have been brought under state laws, not federal. There is still no federal statute outlawing anti-LGBT discrimination.
http://www.advocate.com/politics/2017/5/06/religious-right-divided-over-trumps-executive-order
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