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Leaked Draft of ‘Religious Freedom’ Executive Order Targeting LGBT Community Stirs Anxiety and Anger

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Sweeping Executive Order Would Enable Massive Anti-LGBT Discrimination Under Cloak of ‘Religious Freedom’

A draft “religious freedom” executive order leaked to news outlets Tuesday is creating overlapping states of anxiety and anger among LGBTQ people and their allies. Its title is, “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom.”

First reported by The Nation, the proposed language of the draft would make nearly total allowance for exemptions by any person, church, religious organization or for-profit business, allowing them to claim religious objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, contraceptives, abortion, and gender identity outside of their particular viewpoint. 

As word spread Wednesday evening, Zack Ford, LGBT Editor for the Center for American Progress news site, ThinkProgress, reacted, writing:

“President Trump’s promise not to rescind President Obama’s 2014 executive order protecting the LGBT employees of federal contractors may very well have meant nothing. Rumors of an anti-LGBT ‘religious freedom’ order being developed this week proved to be quite accurate, and though it doesn’t technically rescind the protections, it would create such a broad license to discriminate that it virtually overrides them. And LGBT people aren’t the only target.'”

The White House did not respond to requests for comment Monday about whether a religious freedom executive order was being considered or a draft circulated, however, in answer to a question from The Washington Blade during the daily press briefing, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said, “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.” 

Reacting to the language of the draft, Marty Lederman, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and an expert on church-state separation and religious freedom told The Nation, “This executive order would appear to require agencies to provide extensive exemptions from a staggering number of federal laws—without regard to whether such laws substantially burden religious exercise.”

He went on to note that the exemptions could themselves violate federal law or license individuals and private parties to violate federal law. “The exemptions would raise serious First Amendment questions, as well, because they would go far beyond what the Supreme Court has identified as the limits of permissive religious accommodations.” It would be “astonishing,” he said, “if the Office of Legal Counsel certifies the legality of this blunderbuss order.”

RELATED: Exclusive: Executive Order to Roll Back Obama’s Federal Protections for LGBT Employees in the Works

Ford stated, “To be clear, it doesn’t protect people regardless of what they believe on LGBT issues, sex before marriage, or abortion; it only protects people people who take the religious conservative position on those issues. It is a flagrant endorsement of one set of religious beliefs over another.”

Whether or not the draft or a variant of it will be finalized, signed and then released remains to be seen. However, responding to ABC News on Wednesday, the White House did not dispute the authenticity of the draft, but did claim that it is one of hundreds of circulating executive orders that do not all reflect administration thinking or intended policy. White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders explained, “We do not have plans to sign anything at this time but will let you know when we have any updates.” 

Rumors swirled that President Trump will sign or announce the order at Thursday morning’s National Prayer Breakfast.

Brody Levesque is the Chief Political Correspondent for The New Civil Rights Movement.
You may contact Brody at Brody.Levesque@thenewcivilrightsmovement.com 

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Mother Starts $5000 GoFundMe for 1st Grader She Says Has OCD Because of ‘Critical Race Theory’

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July 7, 2021

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Robin Steenman, the chapter head of “Moms for Liberty” in Tennessee, is raising money for a family she says has been so traumatized by “critical race theory” that a first grader requires psychological help.

The GoFundMe is asking for $5,000 because the family’s 7-year-old daughter is in treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder because she was taught “critical race theory” in her first-grade class.

Steenman recently appeared on Glenn Beck’s radio show to talk about her work in her community to create hysteria around the teaching of CRT. She boasted that she’s recruited 1,100 angry parents in her community to organize for “Moms for Liberty,” a right-wing group run by conservative women who masquerade as a community mom’s organization.

According to Steenman’s GoFundMe page, the mother sent a letter saying that both of her children are suffering from serious issues and her youngest child is a special needs kid about to enter Kindergarten.

“Most notably, my 7 year old (first grader) (sic) has shown the most tragic changes. We went from a normal functioning, sweet child to one who will literally crumble at the slightest challenge and word,” the story explains.

“My daughter started coming home asking very pointed questions about who she is and if she is a bad person. She came home extremely upset. She told me ‘Mom, I’m white. My friend is brown. I need to apologize to him for being white because white people have done bad things to people with brown skin,'” the mother said.

She cited the “Wit & Wisdom” program used by the school that they are now working to ban at the school board level.

The family hasn’t said whether or not they plan to launch a lawsuit against the school or the curriculum company for psychological damages, and so far are just asking for donations online.

“This curriculum has destroyed my daughter’s self-esteem and created a world in which she is fraught with anxiety and is now in treatment for OCD caused by the constant thoughts being represented by this material,” the letter continued. The mother also said that the child came home able to describe specifics about the Civil War “as if they had been there.” The Civil War isn’t generally taught in first grade.

“Lessons on the war and its causes usually begin in the fifth through eighth grades,” says a 2017 Associated Press story on the teaching of the Civil War.

The mother went on to claim that her 7-year-old now has “feelings of self hate (sic) that border on suicidal.”

She also threatened to take her children out of the school if CRT continues to be taught.

The story, according to the GoFundMe page, was first found on an Instagram page that posts stories of “children traumatized by curriculum & activist teachers in Williamson County Schools.”

You can read the full GoFundMe page here.

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BREAKING NEWS

Tucker Carlson Was Trying to Get a Putin Interview – And May Have Been Talking to a Russian ‘Foreign Agent’: Report

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July 7, 2021

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Fox News personality Tucker Carlson’s bombshell accusations from last week – that the National Security Agency was spying on him, reading his emails and intended to leak them to get him kicked off the air – remains in dispute, but an Axios report Wednesday evening reveals what he may have actually been concerned about.

Carlson, according to Axios’ Jonathan Swan, was attempting to get an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he may have been communicating with a Russian spy in that effort.

Citing experts, Swan reports one scenario, and the least likely, “is that the U.S. government submitted a request to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor Carlson to protect national security.”

“A more plausible scenario is that one of the people Carlson was talking to as an intermediary to help him get the Putin interview was under surveillance as a foreign agent,” in other words, a Russian spy. “In that scenario, Carlson’s emails or text messages could have been incidentally collected as part of monitoring this person, but Carlson’s identity would have been masked in any intelligence reports.”

Swan goes on to say that two sources “familiar with Carlson’s communications said his two Kremlin intermediaries live in the United States, but the sources could not confirm whether both are American citizens or whether both were on U.S. soil at the time they communicated with Carlson.”

“This is relevant because if one of them was a foreign national and on foreign soil during the communications, the U.S. government wouldn’t necessarily have had to seek approval to monitor their communications.”

But CNN’s Oliver Darcy urges caution, reminding that Carlson claimed the NSA was trying to get his show canceled.

As Axios notes, plenty of American journalists have interviewed Putin, so that’s not a problem.

What Swan and Darcy don’t discuss is the most obvious question: what was in those emails (or other communications) to a Russian foreign agent that would make Carlson, a conspiracy theorist, white supremacist, and white nationalist, think would be so damaging that they could get his show canceled?

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SUPERSPREADER AND SEDITION CAUCUS

Gaetz, Greene and Boebert Lead GOP Fear-Mongering Over Biden Door-to-Door Vaccine Info Plan: ‘Confiscate Guns Next?’

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July 7, 2021

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Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) are leading the GOP’s fear-mongering disinformation campaign to shut down any chance of success President Biden has for his latest plan – still in draft stage – to help get more Americans vaccinated.

The Biden administration plan to send local representatives door-to-door to pockets where large percentages of Americans remain unvaccinated against the coronavirus, to answer questions and offer information, including on where they can get vaccinated.

“Those knocking on the doors will offer information about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine,” The New York Post adds.

But according to the most extreme Republicans, the federal government will be knocking on doors, compiling lists of who is not vaccinated, and even forcing needles into their arms on the spot – all of which are false.

Rep. Boebert promoted a tweet that falsely suggested personal health records would be used to “force” Americans to decide to get vaccinated. Then she turned it into an issue on her favorite topic: guns, falsely suggesting the Biden administration will “confiscate” guns next year.

She also said she opposes mandatory vaccines of any type for U.S. service members, which would lead to a national security crisis.

Not requiring vaccines against measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, diphtheria, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, HPV, meningococcal, polio, pneumococcal meningitis, pneumococcal pneumonia, rotavirus, tetanus, whooping cough, and COVID-19 could turn the U.S. Military into a stew of disease and would lead foreign nations to ban our troops.

Meanwhile, Congressman Gaetz suggested President Biden would use the door-to-door information outreach to “make lists of people who didn’t want vaccines” and use them “to impact jobs, travel, or schooling,” which has no basis in fact, and would be illegal.

After using Holocaust, Hitler, and Nazi rhetoric to attack President Biden’s plan on Tuesday, Greene provided and vaccine disinformation on Wednesday.

Other Republican members of Congress also expressed opposition:

Ohio Congressman:

Texas Congressman:

North Carolina Congressman:

Florida state lawmaker running for Congress:

Sabatini opposes a woman’s right to choose:

 

 

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