Trump/Pence Regime Issues "Faith-Based" License to Discriminate

The Trump/Pence regime unleashed another attack in its war against LGBT Americans and others who offend the "deeply held religious beliefs" of Christofascists.  While one of the most direct targets, gays will likely not be the only victims of discrimination by organizations receiving federal taxpayer funds. Recently, the Trump/Pence Justice Department also filed briefs in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that employment discrimination against LGBT individuals is legal and not covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Not by coincidence, each of these latest attacks on LGBT Americans has coincided with growing troubles for Trump in the context of the release of the Mueller Report and now Congressional hears and his need to rally his evangelical Christian base.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at this ominous and dangerous regulation.  Here are excerpts:

President Trump announced a new rule allowing health providers, insurers and employers to refuse to provide or pay for services such as abortion, sterilization or assisted suicide that they say violate their religious or moral beliefs.

The 440-page rule is broad in scope, spelling out specific services that individuals and entities could refrain from providing or paying for based on their beliefs. It also emphasizes parents’ rights to refuse several specific types of care for their children.

Conservative [Christofascist] groups welcomed what they call “conscience protections” for health care workers and others, while LGBTQ and women’s groups warned the rule would reduce services and potentially harm patients if providers refuse to deliver certain care, or treat gay and transgender people.

“Religious liberty is a fundamental right, but it doesn’t include the right to discriminate or harm others,” said Louise Melling, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union. “This rule threatens to prevent people from accessing critical medical care and may endanger people’s lives. … Medical standards, not religious belief, should guide medical care.”

Trump’s remarks on the National Day of Prayer were the third time he has used the 77-year-old annual multifaith observance to make announcements addressing the concerns of Christian conservatives, who are a large part of his base. During his first year in office, he promised to make it easier for religious leaders to speak openly about politics. On Thursday, he said the Johnson Amendment, which prevents churches from endorsing political candidates, has been effectively eliminated, though it would take an act of Congress to officially strike it.

The final rule regarding health care — issued by the Department of Health and Human Services — explicitly mentions abortion, sterilization, assisted suicide and advance directives as issues, and says that individuals and entities — from medical students to people who prep patients before operations to charitable groups — could object on religious or moral grounds.

It also includes language that supporters and opponents alike said would ratchet up parents’ right to dictate whether their children receive several types of care, diminishing the role of the government in guaranteeing youngsters’ well-being.

[T]he rule says that children cannot be made to undergo suicide assessment or early treatment if their parents or legal guardian hold religious or moral objections to such services. And in any state that allows parents to exercise religious objections to childhood vaccines or to testing newborns for hearing loss, doctors must heed those parents’ wishes.

Health-care providers and civil rights groups, however, expressed worry the rule could compromise patients’ well-being in ways large and small. On page 80, for instance, HHS appears to allow for the possibility that ambulance drivers, or EMT personnel, could refuse care in certain situations.

Others feared the rule would be used as cover for discrimination. “The administration’s decision puts LGBTQ people at greater risk of being denied necessary and appropriate health care solely based on their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said David Stacy, government affairs director for Human Rights Campaign . . . 

Expect more preventable deaths and more disease thanks to anti-vaccine extremists and other religious nutcases. 

A release by Fenway Health that condemns the rule also has a handy recap of the Trump/Pence regimes anti-LGBT actions.  Here are highlights:

“This latest attack on the right of everyone, regardless of their religious beliefs, to access health care is extremely alarming and disconcerting. This rule takes the concept of religious freedom and turns it on its head. True religious freedom protects an individual’s right to worship—or not—and harms no one. But this rule is designed so that government employees and healthcare providers can deny service or treatment to LGBT people by claiming that providing such service or treatment would violate their religious beliefs or sincerely held principles,” said Sean Cahill, Director of Health Policy Research at the Fenway Institute at Fenway Health. “Health care is both a human and a civil right. Every law that governs access to health care should put patients first. This new rule does not do that.”

“It is important to view this latest move in the context of a series of attacks on the rights of LGBT patients that have taken place over the last two and a half years,” said Cahill. “Research shows that anti-LGBT discrimination in health care correlates with poorer health outcomes and constitutes a barrier to LGBT people’s ability to access health care.”

Other anti-LGBT policies enacted by the Trump administration that are harming LGBT people include:

• Dismissing Peace Corps volunteers and Air Force service members who tested positive for HIV, and refusing to provide pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention (PrEP) to at-risk Peace Corps volunteers;
• Filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that gender identity is outside of the scope of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex and national origin;”
• Filing a brief in the Masterpiece Cake Shop case before the U.S. Supreme Court supporting discrimination against a gay male couple and stating that there is no compelling federal government interest in prohibiting anti-gay discrimination;
• Placing transgender inmates of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, especially transgender women, at much higher risk of rape by incarcerating them according to their biological sex at birth instead of their gender identity;
• Prohibiting transgender people from serving in the U.S. military;
• Removing sexual orientation and gender identity questions from federal surveys of older adults, people with disabilities, and victims of crime.
• Attempting to repeal or weaken the ACA, which has cut the uninsured rate in half for LGBT people.