President Trump issued an Executive Order on religious liberty today, the National Day of Prayer:
EXECUTIVE ORDER PROMOTING FREE SPEECH AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to guide the executive branch in formulating and implementing policies with implications for the religious liberty of persons and organizations in America, and to further compliance with the Constitution and with applicable statutes and Presidential Directives, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. It shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom. The Founders envisioned a Nation in which religious voices and views were integral to a vibrant public square, and in which religious people and institutions were free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or retaliation by the Federal Government. For that reason, the United States Constitution enshrines and protects the fundamental right to religious liberty as Americans’ first freedom. Federal law protects the freedom of Americans and their organizations to exercise religion and participate fully in civic life without undue interference by the Federal Government. The executive branch will honor and enforce those protections.
Sec. 2. Respecting Religious and Political Speech. All executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall, to the greatest extent practicable and to the extent permitted by law, respect and protect the freedom of persons and organizations to engage in religious and political speech. In particular, 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. As used in this section, the term “adverse action” means the imposition of any tax or tax penalty; the delay or denial of tax-exempt status; the disallowance of tax deductions for contributions made to entities exempted from taxation under section 501(c)(3) of title 26, United States Code; or any other action that makes unavailable or denies any tax deduction, exemption, credit, or benefit.
Sec. 3. Conscience Protections with Respect to Preventive-Care Mandate. The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall consider issuing amended regulations, consistent with applicable law, to address conscience-based objections to the preventive-care mandate promulgated under section 300gg-13(a)(4) of title 42, United States Code.
Sec. 4. Religious Liberty Guidance. In order to guide all agencies in complying with relevant Federal law, the Attorney General shall, as appropriate, issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in Federal law.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/16051/my-mistake-trumps-new-executive-order-religious-ben-shapiro
http://www.lifenews.com/2017/05/04/house-passes-bill-to-defund-planned-parenthood-abortion-biz/
Maybe this will be a good start as well!
I pray it is. Still a ways to go however.
Liberal Federal judges in Oregon, Californication, Hawaii, NY State will overturn it.
I fear now that there won’t be any sermons on contraception and we’ll be in a worse spot in a few years.
The power to tax is the power to destroy.
Earlier, President Donald J. Trump He had done some heavy lifting by ordering he IRS (American terrorist organization) to not enforce the 1954(?) regulatory ruling prohibiting (deny tax-exempt status0 religious political speech.
May 5 The Johnson Amendment presumes to dictate to a sovereign people what they may think and speak in the privacy of their relationship with “their Creator” during their visits to their chosen church, in their chosen beliefs. The Johnson Amendment arrogates to itself illegitimate authority over the sovereignty of religion, over the sovereignty of righteous conscience and over the sovereignty of the citizen over the state. The Johnson Amendment is a chip in the totalitarian state, a veritable false God, idolatry and an abomination. The Johnson Amendment imposes Freedom From Religion on every citizen. One might ask why the Freedom From Religion Foundation and other atheistic groups so aggressively counter righteous religious communities. The taxpayers pay the legal fees demanded by atheistic groups to counter righteous religious communities in our court system, a battle that cannot be won and a legal fee that cannot be met. The good that comes from the court pursuit is that citizens become aware of their freedom and the expression of their civil rights. If the atheistic groups’ contention is valid it will hold its own in a court of law and not have to be funded by the tax money of righteously religious people. Atheism has divided this country against its sovereign citizens. Atheism has no good will for the common good.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Church about the sovereignty of the citizen’s conscience over the state. “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.”
Th. Jefferson
The Ninth Amendment to our Constitution upholds Jefferson’s truth.
Catholic churches do not vote. To tax churches would impose two taxes on the parishioners who have only one vote: Taxation without representation. All churches are held in trust for all future generations as is The Vatican and the Vatican’s treasures, trusts that are not owned by the parishioners and therefore the trusts cannot be taxed. It is pitiful that our government can be so bigoted and religiously discriminating wanting to disenfranchise non-profit churches because of their beliefs.
This Executive Order may be a double edged sword. The Democrats abused the former law by allowing candidates and elected officials to speak as part of worship services. In Richmond VP candidateSen Kaine was allowed to speak at his parish during the Mass, as I understand it. I am not interested in hearing any candidate or elected official for that matter speak during Mass unless they are a lector reading the Epistles and the Psalms. I do appreciate the Catholic Voting Guide and would like to see that as a handout at the back of the church.
We are safe in our congregation in that our last two resident priests and our current priest are conservative, traditional Catholics and politically conservative. It’s not like that everywhere.
On a positive note maybe this Exec. Order will make our cardinals and bishops brave, if the reason they have been so weak is fear of taxation. We’ll see.
CNN was absolutely infuriated [*nothing new there, but] that Trump had his “peculiar” “religious day”, they called it.
The Devil knows his enemies well.