Sessions wants more theocracy please
Jeff Sessions gave a speech at the conservative Christian law firm the Alliance Defending Freedom, in which he promised new guidelines on “religious freedom.” We know what that means when someone like Jeff Sessions says it.
When the speech at Alliance Defending Freedom’s Summit on Religious Liberty appeared on the Attorney General’s public schedule, it was cause for concern among LGBTQ advocacy groups and Democrats — many of whom issued statements questioning why Sessions would speak to what some call an anti-LGBTQ hate group due to its history of litigating against LGBTQ rights.
But after reading the transcript and learning of the Justice Department’s plans to create a new federal policy on protecting religious liberties and doubling down on enforcing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, advocates suggested Sessions was more interested in protecting the right to discriminate than the freedom of religion.
Or both. They may be inextricably tangled together. He may think that’s what freedom of religion means.
The Trump administration has promised several times to enact some form of increased religious liberty protections. During the campaign, Trump said he would sign the First Amendment Defense Act, a bill that would allow businesses to turn away LGBTQ people as well as unmarried couples and single mothers.
Before being confirmed as Attorney General, then-senator Sessions was a sponsor of the First Amendment Defense Act.
In May, President Trump signed an executive order on religious liberty that allows companies to reject the Affordable Care Act’s mandate on birth control coverage.
Thus violating the religious freedom of women who need birth control and think their health insurance should cover it.
Sessions has also faced criticism from LGBTQ rights advocates. In a January interview, the mother of slain gay college student Matthew Shepard told NBC News that Sessions fought against the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Act when it was being debated in 2009. In a lengthy speech decrying the legislation designed to help victims, Sessions said that “gays and lesbians have not been denied access” to anything, and that hate crimes were “thought crimes.”
In his senate career, Sessions displayed strong anti-LGBTQ leanings. According to a report issued by the Human Rights Campaign, then-senator Sessions argued in favor of anti-sodomy laws used to imprison gay men, opposed same-sex marriage, sought to terminate National Endowment for the Arts funding because it once went to black lesbian filmmaker Cheryl Dunye, opposed repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy keeping lesbian and gay service members in the closet, and tried to block federal funding for HIV-prevention programs if they appear to “promote sexual activity and behavior” among “homosexual men and women.”
Apparently only straight people get to have religious freedom.
Only straight Christian people, preferably white of course.
I know how your political system works, but explain to me again how all this works…
Hate crimes are thought crimes only when they stay inside your head – and in that case, they are not crimes. The Matthew Shepherd crime was not a thought crime, it was a real crime, inspired by real hate, and I find it disgusting that Sessions pretends otherwise. I’m sure he would admit that was a real crime, but he would not see the hate crime aspect of it, just an ordinary crime, just some men doing some ordinary terrorizing, boys will be boys, probably just having fun that went wrong, not hate at all.
Have I said yet today that I absolutely hate this administration? If not, I have gone way too long in the day.
I’m with you there, iknklast. That evil little Keebler elf is just one vile face in a dentist of wickedness.
Having every DC/Marvel/cartoon villain in Washington is as upsetting as it is absurd.
Dentist as the collective noun of wicked people? Love your thinking, BKiSA.
Should’ve looked more closely before posting that from my phone…
Iknklast: worse than that, that’s not even what a thought crime is. He implies that thought crime is the act of thinking about doing something criminal, rather than an insidious violation of the right to freedom of conscience.
Graham – exactly my point, why I said it was not a crime. Thinking is not a crime, acting is. Acting out criminal fantasies on groups you hate is a hate crime. Punishing people for such crimes is not punishing a thought crime.
BKiSA, a most fortuitous typo. I’ll be using ‘dentist of wickedness’ from now on, it’s just too perfect.
Hmph – this idea that dentists are the epitome of wickedness. Think harder. Do you really want decayed cracked painful teeth that you can’t chew with? Dentistry is one of the great gifts of modern technology.
Dentistry is indeed a great gift of technology, it’s the practitioners who are wicked. Who else but the wicked would be attracted to a profession that increases one’s pain before fixing it?
iknklast:
OK, that didn’t work – it was supposed to be the thumbs-up emoji
You’ll Be A Dentist, from Little Shop of Horrors, come to mind.