These Guys Are Not In Their Right Mind, They Are Down Right Scary!

I keep on wondering why they hate us so much, is it just politics or do they have that much hate in their souls?

Ted Cruz Reveals The ‘Religious Liberty’ Plan His Hate Group Buddies Came Up With
ThinkProgress
By Zack Ford
March 25, 2016

In his bid for the presidency, Ted Cruz (R) has consistently surrounded himself with some of the most extreme social conservatives in the country. In addition to appearing beside these individuals at various events, he also recruited a Religious Liberty Advisory Council — what Fox News’ Todd Starnes calls a “faith-based Justice League.”

Through Starnes, Cruz unveiled this week just what kind of ideas this council has developed to protect “religious liberty.” Given the fact that his council consisted of representatives from only the most conservative iterations of Christianity, the 15-point list is unsurprisingly dedicated to privileging Christian beliefs and enabling discrimination against the LGBT community and women.

If you look at their 15-point list it is pretty draconian,

Domestic Religious Liberty Policy Proposals for Incoming Administration
Initial Recommendations from Ted Cruz's Religious Liberty Advisory Council

Marriage and Human Sexuality:

• Issue an Executive Order protecting persons from discrimination by the federal government on the basis of their view that marriage is between a man and a woman (this executive order could model the protections in the First Amendment Defense Act).
• Call for passage of the First Amendment Defense Act.
• Rescind Executive Order 13672, which had (without adequate religious exemptions) required certain federal contractors to not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In the alternative, create significantly larger and robust exemptions for religious organizations and businesses falling under the authority of Executive Order 13672.
• Direct all federal agencies to stop interpreting “sex” to include “sexual orientation” and/or “gender identity” where the term “sex” refers to a protected class in federal law. Prioritize this effort at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Housing and Urban Development.

And it also has what he wants to do to the military,

Military:

• Require service chiefs to fully update and revise their regulations protecting the free exercise of religion to ensure they properly reflect a robust, constitutional understanding of free exercise, and the religious liberty protections in the 2013 and 2014 National Defense Authorization Acts (which are reflected in DOD Instruction 1300.17). These updates and revisions should also include guidance outlining the robust religious freedom and free speech rights of chaplains, as not bound by the limits on public employees making statement pursuant to their official duties.
• Require that service chiefs implement programs to proactively educate commanders, chaplains, and JAG officers about these regulations once updated.
• Expand the protections Congress afforded to chaplains in FY13 and FY14 NDAA amendments to apply equally to all service members.

This is some scary stuff… religious training for the military. Whoa!

The article goes on to say,

None of these ideas is surprising, however, given who serves on Cruz’s committee. His council’s chair is Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBT hate group. “These are the policies that he is going to pursue,” Perkins promised Starnes. “He is absolutely committed to the issue of religious liberty.”

Other members include:

• The Benham brothers, who have become celebrity victims since HGTV decided against giving them a house-flipping show because of their anti-gay beliefs.
• Ryan T. Anderson, the Heritage Foundation’s point man for espousing anti-LGBT positions.
• Bishop Harry Jackson, who was one of the loudest opponents of marriage equality fights in the District of Columbia and Maryland.
• Steve Riggle, a Houston pastor who helped lead the fight against the LGBT-inclusive Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO).
• Kelly Shackelford, head of First Liberty (formerly the Liberty Institute), a legal organization that defends individuals and businesses when they discriminate against LGBT people.
• Jim Garlow, a California pastor and activist with a storied history of railing against the LGBT community.

No one on the council represented any non-Christian religions nor any of the LGBT-inclusive or even more moderate Christian denominations. With Ted Cruz as president, it seems the only religion that will have any liberty is his particular conservative brand of evangelical Christianity.

An article in Forward Progress quotes Cruz as saying,

Well, while speaking to the American Family Association (a known anti-gay hate group), Cruz said that the only way this country can be saved is for evangelicals to rise up and vote for politicians who’ll pass legislation based upon Biblical principles.

“Nothing is more important in the next 18 months than that the body of Christ rise up and that Christians stand up, that pastors stand up and lead,” Cruz said. “In this last election, 54 million evangelical Christians stayed home. If we can simply bring Christians to the polls – is it any wonder we have the government we have – we have the leaders we have if believers stay home and leave electing our leaders to unbelievers. We get exactly what we deserve and nothing is more important that having people of faith stand up and just vote our values, vote biblical values and that’s how we turn the country around.”

I don’t know about you but to me this is all creepy stuff, it sounds like the beginnings of a theocracy.