Never Give Up, Never Surrender

Reposted with permission from elf
You can read the original post here.


The newest executive order (pdf) has been signed, and the good (?) news is, it's mostly useless blather. This is absolutely NOT Pence's "make it legal to discriminate against LGBTQ people and everyone with a uterus" thing that bounced around a couple of months ago. (I'm sure that one's still in the works; they just have to figure out how to rephrase it so even their most conservative lawyers aren't telling them, "um... no; every single court that sees this - and plenty will - is going to throw this out immediately.")

The key part of the new order: No more blocks on political speech/candidate endorsement by churches.

Secondary part: Treasury, Labor & Health dept's are ordered to "consider issuing amended regulations" to allow discrimination against women. (I say women instead of people-with-uteruses because that's how it's described in section 300gg-13(a)(4) of title 42, United States Code.)

Basic breakdown with disclaimer: IANAL. TINLA. Layman's interp of legal-ish document. Consult an attorney (or your pineal gland) before taking action inspired by the most recent executive order.

Section 1: Total meaningless blather. "Robust protections for religious freedom" already exist in law; saying he's going to enforce them means nothing.

Section 2: More intense blather, plus, no tax penalties for churches that get political. Seems to also include all 501(c)3 orgs, but the phrasing is unclear. (Not clear if any 501(c)3 would be allowed to do political things if they claimed a religious basis, or if only contributions-to-501(c)3s are exempt from tax problems.)

Section 3: Secretaries of 3 departments are ordered to "consider" amending the health code law to allow religious discrimination against women's health care.

Section 4: More blather, this time about how the Atty General is going to "issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections."

Section 5: Legal boilerplate - Severability: if one part is found unconstitutional, the rest still apply.

Section 6: Legal boilerplate/blather - disclaimer that none of this shall be construed to interfere with law or gov't authority or budgeting, and there's no right to sue any gov't-related person as a result of this.

So... this is about money, not religious rights. P45 doesn't care about gays, pro or con; he doesn't care about marriages; he doesn't care about who has sex with whom. He cares about (1) megachurches being allowed to give lip service and money to political causes and (2) insurance corporations not having to spend money on women.

As far as I can tell, the fascist right has forgotten that "religion" is not synonymous with "Christianity." The full text of Section 2 (bolding added):

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.

I strongly recommend that witches have a copy of this order, and the ruling of Dettmer v. Landon, on your person when meeting at gov't offices to cast hexes at legislators.

I do know that we're going to see some fucked-up results from this, but I will take what bits of silver lining I can find.

I bet they're going to use it to argue that preaching in schools is okay, too. Anyone want to arrange a Discordian Proselytution Tour to spread the Strange News to children who need it?

*

Also to note: the ACLU declines to file litigation, saying that all the order does is "merely provide a faux sop to religious conservatives and kick the can down the road on religious exemptions on reproductive health care services."