Sessions preaches
The Federalist posted a transcript of Sessions’s theocracy please speech. It’s the usual collection of uninteresting bromides.
And of course it was faith that inspired Martin Luther King Jr. to march and strive to make this country stronger yet. His was a religious movement. The faith that truth would overcome. He said that we “must not seek to solve the problem” of segregation merely for political reasons, but “in the final analysis, we must get rid of segregation because it is sinful.” It undermined the promise, as he described it, that “each individual has certain basic rights that are neither derived from nor conferred by the state…they are gifts from the hands of the Almighty God.”
But of course Sessions himself resisted King’s movement, and still does to this day.
To an amazing degree, the value of religion is totally missed by many today. Our inside-the-beltway crowd has no idea how much good is being done in this country every day by our faith communities. They teach right behavior, they give purpose to life, and they support order, lawfulness, and personal discipline while comforting the sick, supporting families, and giving support to those in need. They are there at birth and death.
Says a man who works in the administration of Donald Trump, that paragon of right behavior, lawfulness, and giving support to those in need. In short he’s a massive hypocrite and a phony.
In all of this litigation and debate, this Department of Justice will never allow this secular government of ours to demand that sincere religious beliefs be abandoned. We will not require American citizens to give intellectual assent to doctrines that are contrary to their religious beliefs. And they must be allowed to exercise those beliefs as the First Amendment guarantees.
We will defend freedom of conscience resolutely. That is inalienable. That is our heritage.
So if that means preventing women from getting birth control by god that’s what it means – it’s inalienable – it’s their heritage.
The president has also directed me to issue guidance on how to apply federal religious liberty protections. The department is finalizing this guidance, and I will soon issue it.
The guidance will also help agencies follow the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Congress enacted RFRA so that, if the federal government imposes a burden on somebody’s religious practice, it had better have a compelling reason. That is a demanding standard, and it’s the law of the land. We will follow it just as faithfully as we follow every other federal law. If we’re going to ensure that religious liberty is adequately protected and our country remains free, then we must ensure that RFRA is followed.
RFRA is a crap law.
Sessions is emerging as the intellectual giant of the Trump Administration. Either that, or its theological colossus.
Perhaps both.
I attended an Oxford Round Table session on religion a couple of years ago. The speakers there were almost all theocrats. There were two of us who stuck together and listened in horror as these speakers unveiled all the things they felt must happen. The very first speaker announced “The United States must become a theocracy”. He went on to say (rather disingenuously, I suspect) “We don’t know for sure what we would do with all the people who believe differently”. I was currently reading a book on the Inquisition, and I felt like waving it in his face (sort of like believers do the Bible) and say, “I think you do know. It’s all right here”.”
I left that particular round table in a horrible mood, which was bad, since prior I had only a positive impression of the Oxford Round Table, and had thoroughly enjoyed other ones I’d attended. It spoiled my entire England trip, even though there were no English theocrats present. They were Americans and Africans from various countries, and one Australian. To their credit, our English hosts were appalled. They’re probably even more appalled now that the theocrats have so much more power even than they already did.
What heuristic do they plan to use in the event of clashing religious rights? Leaving aside for the moment the fact that the religious rights of women are already being denied or interfered with in regards to reproductive health, what happens when two parties clash over religious “freedom” when neither one can be conveniently dismissed as “godless” and thus unworthy of protection? Say a devout Muslim cab driver refuses service to a Catholic priest who is carrying wine intended for use in Mass? The priest wins because Christian? Here’s a tougher one. What about a dispute between Catholic and Protestant religious beliefs? Protestants win because not Papist? How will they decide without making a pronouncement favouring one religion over another, an entanglement which is frowned upon by the U.S. Constitution? I’m guessing that the intent is to support White, Christian, Protestant bigotry, with lip service to other bigotries as long as they can be used to beat liberal rights and do not clash with the needs of the W/C/P crowd.