There has been a lot of talk lately about a “religious freedom” executive order by “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”
In other words the bill could override state law!
Businesses would have to grant employees to discriminate against and there can be no test that it really is a religious belief and not bigotry. All they have to say that “it is against my religious tenets” and they can then legally discriminate against us. Pharmacists could refuse our meds, EMT could refuse to treat us if we were in a car accident or in the emergency room, or a court clerk could refuse wait on us.
How Would Trump's Religious Liberty Order Affect Transgender Kids? It's Seriously Bad NewsSo what will the possible EO contain?
Romper
By Andrea Frazier
May 3, 2017
For President Donald Trump and his administration, nothing says "National Day of Prayer" quite like stripping broad swaths of Americans of basic rights and protections. At least, that's the impression one might get from the president's reported plan to sign a "religious freedom" executive order on Thursday, an occasion meant to unite the nation. It's no secret that, in the United States right now, terms like "religious freedom" and "religious liberty" used in a political sense are basically synonymous with pursuing a license to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals. We also know that Trump's religious liberty order would affect transgender kids perhaps particularly harshly.
A unnamed senior administration official told CNN Wednesday that it's "definitely possible" that the president will take pen to paper to communicate to a huge and diverse population how little they matter to him. And if the draft of the order that was leaked to The Nation in February is any indication, it's clear that it would prioritize "any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations" over actual citizens' best interests.
And, really, the language that the February version of the executive order (which Trump never signed), tells you all you need to know about how seriously the Trump admin take trans rights. Here's what it said about the definition of gender:Consider when President Obama issued the EO requiring all recipients federal funding cannot discriminate against LGBT people and allow same-sex couples to have visitation rights in healthcare facilities could do the same thing in reverse. That the EO could require all recipients of federal funding grant “religious freedom” to employees and businesses and could negating state non-discrimination laws.
... Male and female and their equivalents refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth....Talk about totally disregarding someone's identity. And similar to the famous example that the original version of Pence's Religious Freedom Restoration Act would have entitled — a wedding cake baker and their ability to refuse to concoct a confection for a same-sex wedding — the religious liberty order could have consequences for trans youth.
In other words the bill could override state law!
Businesses would have to grant employees to discriminate against and there can be no test that it really is a religious belief and not bigotry. All they have to say that “it is against my religious tenets” and they can then legally discriminate against us. Pharmacists could refuse our meds, EMT could refuse to treat us if we were in a car accident or in the emergency room, or a court clerk could refuse wait on us.
According to CNN, it looks like we dodged the bullet.
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