In a flagrant act of contempt for the separation of church and state,
the Trump administration has simultaneously issued regulations in eight federal agencies that will blow the door open for taxpayer-funded religious discrimination.
The new rules allow federally-funded "faith-based" organizations to impose religious programming on nonbelievers, discriminate in who they hire, and even refuse services to anyone they deem to be religiously objectionable.
Atheists, LGBTQ, women, the unmarried, religious minorities...no group will be protected.
Before the rules go into effect, the federal agencies involved are required to evaluate public comments on them. Will you use your voice to defend the separation of church and state?
Look at what these terrible new rules will do:
Revoke the right of beneficiaries to request an alternative, secular service provider in accordance with their own belief or lack of belief.
Deny the right to services that are free of religious programming, messaging, iconography, and litmus tests.
Repeal the right of beneficiaries to a written notice of their rights prior to applying for services.
It boils down to this: These rules will allow discrimination in practically every public service you can think of. Universities, employment assistance, housing, after-school programs, even nutrition assistance to seniors like Meals on Wheels.
That’s right! They want to allow discrimination for Meals on Wheels!
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Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion. "Who does not see," he wrote, "that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" Madison was writing from his memory of Baptist ministers being arrested in his native Virginia.
my meager periodic amounts to:
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU): https://www.au.org/
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): https://www.aclu.org/
Reviewing these web sites, I see both organizations are already on top of this Constitutional abuse. I'm sure there are many other good orgs like these that deserve our support as well.
This clearly represents another way the ultra-wealthy right-wing is beating us to death by having to keep their ass in court over issues that should be non-starters. For those of us of limited means, these contributions could be instead going to support dozens of Democratic Party candidates around the nation or to charities that help the poor.
KY rant done......
