Magats_Love_NHB
Let It Burn!
Donald Trump says America should “forget about” the separation of church and state
Trump said that instead of a separation of church and state, he will bring "religion back to our country."Donald Trump signed an executive order yesterday establishing a “religious liberty commission” at the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate and present strategies to eliminate “threats to domestic religious liberty.” During his comments on the order, Trump said that he doesn’t know if there’s a separation of church and state and that we should “forget about that for one time.”
The executive order says that religious liberty is being violated by “discrimination or hostility from the Government” towards people who are just trying to “practice their faith.” It says that some of these attacks have included ones that “infringe upon longstanding conscience protections, prevent parents from sending their children to religious schools, threaten loss of funding or denial of non-profit tax status for faith-based entities, and single out religious groups and institutions for exclusion from governmental programs.”
While the order doesn’t get more specific, many of these could apply to LGBTQ+ rights. For example, adoption and fostering agencies that receive government funding have been restricted in some states from discriminating against same-sex couples. Many on the right see this as a form of religious discrimination, arguing that those organizations are religious in nature and therefore can’t place children with same-sex couples, and that denying them government funding is a form of religious discrimination.
Trump spoke at a White House Rose Garden event about how the real problem is the idea that the U.S. has a separation of church and state, promising to bring “religion back to our country.”
“They say separation between church and state … I said, ‘All right, let’s forget about that for one time,’” he said, according to Politico.
“They said, really there’s separation. I don’t know. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’m not sure, but whether there’s separation or not, you guys are in the White House where you should be, and you’re representing our country, and we’re bringing religion back to our country, and it’s a big deal.”
Trump has been leaning into Christianity in his second term, going so far as to establish a White House Faith Office led by a televangelist who promises to send people angels if they pay her $1,000. During the campaign, Trump claimed to have been anointed by God.
Trump has already announced several of the appointments to the commission on religious liberty, including Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, who claimed that allowing same-sex couples to get married would lead to incest.
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson will also be on the commission. He repeatedly attacked trans people during his tenure in the first Trump administration, denigrating them in meetings and even issuing guidance on how to spot trans people so that they could be excluded from homeless shelters.
Trump also named Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) to the commission. Patrick has been fighting against trans rights for most of his career and even ordered the state to ignore Obama-era federal protections for transgender students.
Television personality Phil McGraw will also serve on the commission, The Hill reports.
Conservatives have long argued that there is no separation of church and state in the Constitution, despite the Free Exercise Clause, the Establishment Clause, and Article Six all limiting the role of the government in religion and of religion in the government.
