religion under attack

Trump Signs New Executive Order on Religious Liberty – Liberals are Furious

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Free Exercise Clause. Free Exercise Clause refers to the section of the First Amendment italicized here: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… Historically, the Supreme Court has been inconsistent in dealing with this problem.The executive order President Trump is expected to sign Thursday will be focused on the Johnson Amendment and allow non-profit organizations to deny certain health coverage for religious reasons, administration sources told Fox News Wednesday.

The three main points of the executive order, according to a senior White House official, will declare “that it is the policy of the administration to protect and vigorously promote religious liberty,” direct the IRS “to exercise maxim enforcement of discretion to alleviate the burden of the Johnson Amendment,” and provide “regulatory relief for religious objectors to Obamacare’s burdensome preventive services mandate.”

The timing and contents of the order, which would come on the National Day of Prayer, are still “very fluid” and there are still several drafts, according to a senior administration official.

The Johnson Amendment, named for then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas and enacted into law in 1954, essentially regulates tax-exempt organizations such as churches, and religious groups from being too politically involved.

Trump previously campaigned against the amendment, and in February said he would “destroy” the amendment that conservative groups claim restricted political speech by tax-exempt churches.

“I think how the president feels about Johnson amendment is that politicians and unelected bureaucrats shouldn’t have the power to shut up their critics just because they are church leaders or charities,” a senior White House official told Fox News.

In addition, sources tell Fox News the executive order will also allow non-profit organizations, hospitals, educational institutions, and businesses to deny certain health coverage for religious reasons,. That would entail protecting Christian groups like Little Sisters of the Poor from being forced to pay for abortion services.

An early draft of the order, leaked in February, would have established broad exemptions for people and groups to claim religious objections under strong language. Vice President Pence has been a proponent of the plan, and his office has been reportedly pushing for it for months.

While governor of Indiana, Pence signed a similar state law on religious liberty that stirred up controversy across the country, but was seen as a legislative win and rallying cry for social conservatives.

Progressive critics have argued the executive order would allow discrimination against the LGBT community at the federal level.

“The ACLU fights every day to defend religious freedom, but religious freedom does not mean the right to discriminate against or harm others,” Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement Wednesday. “If President Trump signs an executive order that attempts to provide a license to discriminate against women or LGBT people, we will see him in court.”

A senior White House official however pushed back on the criticism saying the order “is not about discrimination.”

‘We don’t have any plans to discriminate, we’re about not discriminating against religious organizations,” the official said.

“Everything that is legal stays legal, everything that is illegal stays illegal,” the official added.

Fox News’ John Roberts and Serafin Gomez contributed to this report.

isis calls for christian genocide

Isis Calls for Christian Genocide, VP Mike Pence calls them out at World Summit

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Originally Published on NewsBusters.org

On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence condemned as “genocide” the horrifying atrocities committed against Christians “under siege” worldwide by “radical Islamic terrorists.” But will the broadcast networks report his comments – and, if so, will they finally use the word “genocide” themselves?

Representing the Trump administration, the vice president spoke at the first-ever World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians hosted by The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Washington, D.C. Pence’s audience consisted more than 600 Christian delegates from roughly 130 countries and territories.

“I’m here on behalf of the president as a tangible sign of his commitment,” Pence began, “[to] defending Christians and frankly all who suffer for their beliefs across the wider world.”

Addressing those in the crowd who had personally faced persecution, Pence offered words of encouragement. “We’re with you. We stand with you. And we are here at this world summit because of you.”

“Across the wider world,” he continued, “the Christian faith is under siege. Throughout the world, no people of faith today face greater hostility or hatred than followers of Christ.”

After listing the horrors that Middle Eastern Christians have faced, Pence affirmed the U.S. government’s solidarity with the suffering. “Know today with assurance that President Trump sees these crimes for what they are — vile acts of persecution, animated by hatred, hatred of the gospel of Christ. And so too does the President know those who perpetrate these crimes. They are the embodiment of evil in our time. He calls them by name: radical Islamic terrorists.”

Among these, the vice president singled out ISIS “barbarians.”

“Their brutal regime shows a savagery frankly unseen in the Middle East since the middle ages,” he declared, before stressing the gravity of their crimes. “I believe that ISIS is guilty of nothing short of genocide against people of the Christian faith. It is time the world called it by name.”

He pointed to tangible signs of persecution:

In Egypt, just recently, we saw bombs explode in churches during events of the celebration of Palm Sunday. A day of hope was transformed into tragedy… In Iraq at the hands of extremists, we’ve actually seen monasteries demolished, priests and monks beheaded, and the 2 millennia-old Christian tradition in Mosul virtually extinguished overnight. In Syria, we see ancient communities burned to the ground and we see believers tortured for confessing Christ, and women and children sold into the most terrible form of human slavery.

He isn’t alone in his concerns. Research groups have called attention to additional statistics concerning Christian genocide. Last month, a study by the Center for Studies on New Religions found that Christians are the “most persecuted group in the world” with “as many as 600 million” who were “prevented from practicing their faith” in 2016.

According to Open Doors USA, on average per month 322 Christians are martyred for their faith, 214 “churches and Christian properties are destroyed” and 772 “forms of violence are committed against Christians (e.g., beatings, abductions, rapes, arrests and forced marriages).”

Network History of Terming Persecution by ISIS ‘Genocide’

If only the broadcast network news shows from ABC, CBS and NBC would heed the vice president’s advice on genocide and “called it by name.”

Earlier this year, the networks covered the Egypt Palm Sunday bombings, for which ISIS claimed responsibility, nine times – without using the word “genocide” once. Similarly, last year, the networks refrained from using “genocide” following an Easter bombing in Pakistan targeting Christians – as well as in other reports of Christian persecution.

Last August, the MRC found that, in the past two-and-half years, the evening news shows reported on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia only 60 times. And of those 60 reports, just six used the word “genocide.”

All this as even the U.S. government acknowledges a genocide by ISIS.

Last year, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that, “in my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yezidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims.”

According to a 1948 United Nations document, genocide “means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” including killing, causing serious physical or mental harm, preventing births and kidnapping children.