President Creates New, Special Rights of Religion – Even for Federally-Funded Organizations
At Thursday’s National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden at the White House President Donald Trump bragged to the faithful that thanks to him new conscience rights protections have been implemented today for “for physicians, pharmacists, nurses, teachers, students and faith-based charities.”
Those “conscience rights” actually are designed to allow medical and education professionals, charities, and others, to refuse service to, and refuse to work with or do business with those people they hold a religious or moral objection to.
Among the Americans who will be discriminated against by the President’s new regulations are LGBTQ people, women seeking abortions, women seeking contraception products and services (even if not for abortion), same-sex couples, unmarried couples, and others.
Same-sex couples, married or not, who wish to adopt a child can, under the President’s order, be refused by faith-based charities – even federally-funded non-profits – if they say doing so would violate their religious or moral beleifs.
Pharmacists can refuse to fill legal prescriptions from a woman’s doctor for contraceptions or “abortion pills,” even if medically necessary to treat other, life-threatening conditions having nothing to do with abortion.
“According to an earlier draft from the Department of Health and Human Services, the rule would require that hospitals, universities, clinics and other institutions that receive funding from federal programs certify that they comply with some 25 federal laws protecting conscience and religious rights,” the Associated Press reports. “Some critics fear the rule could become a pretext for denying medical care to LGBT people.”
“They’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” the president boasted, as the crowd of religious leaders and other invited guests cheered and applauded.
“Right, Mike?” the president asked, motioning to Vice President Pence. “They’ve been wanting to do that for a long time. Happened today.”
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