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Polar bear with carrot

Friday, January 19, 2018

Can I get a witness?

The Trump administration is very concerned about issues of religious liberty. Bravo. So deeply concerned that they just announced the creation of a whole new division at HHS to deal with religious objections in the health care field. So that they don't have to deal with the icky stuff that god hates so much.
The Conscience and Religious Freedom Division has been established to restore federal enforcement of our nation’s laws that protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom.  OCR is the law enforcement agency within HHS that enforces federal laws protecting civil rights and conscience in health and human services, and the security and privacy of people’s health information.  The creation of the new division will provide HHS with the focus it needs to more vigorously and effectively enforce existing laws protecting the rights of conscience and religious freedom, the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights.
Now that Trump is Pro Life, he is nothing if not being all about protecting religious freedom.

So no one in America is ever forced to bake a cake again for a gay couple if their deeply held and sincere religious beliefs tells them not to.

Or serve a mixed race couple in their restaurant. Or rent a hotel room to a jew. Or allow their employees to get an abortion or obtain contraceptives on their insurance plan. I respect that.

But I think that the government has to be consistent here. Isn't consistency the key?

Let's take the Turpins for instance, the Pentecostal couple up in Perris that shackled their twelve kids to their beds, basically starved them, allowing them one meal per day and two showers a year.

These are what appear to be upstanding people, god fearing, with what I am sure are sincere and deeply held religious beliefs. I would not be too surprised to find that they were only following what they believed god told them to do. Who are we to intercede? Didn't Abraham face a similar conundrum? Killing your child because god told you to is worse than chaining them to a bed. Since when does the government have a right to walk all over the Turpins' inherent religious beliefs?

1 comment:

Kerr A. Lott said...


The Turpin's had every right to do what they did to those kids... it's not like they're fetuses or anything.