Photo Op!
The ACLU was all set to sue President Donald Trump over his executive order “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.” But now they’ve changed their minds.
The order (full text here) includes statements like, “It shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom,” and this monstrosity: “the Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure, to the extent permitted by law, that the Department of the Treasury does not take any adverse action against any individual, house of worship, or other religious organization on the basis that such individual or organization speaks or has spoken about moral or political issues from a religious perspective, where speech of similar character has, consistent with law, not ordinarily been treated as participation or intervention in a political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) a candidate for public office by the Department of the Treasury.”
But when you boil it all down, according to the ACLU, it’s meaningless. There’s no practical implication from Trump’s huge gesture to the religious right. In other words, it’s a big nothingburger.
Or, as the ACLU puts it, “an elaborate photo-op with no discernible policy outcome.”
And what a photo op!
Members of the religious right marched onto the dais as President Trump sat down to sign the order, after he spoke for about seven minutes, waxing on about the importance of religious liberty.
It was all a scam, apparently. Some “fake news.”
There’s a directive for the Attorney General to “issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in Federal law,” so we’ll see what comes from that.
But for now, maybe, we can breathe easy, and direct our energies to defeating the Republicans who just voted to repeal ObamaCare.
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