Trump Vows to ‘Destroy’ Ban on Political Endorsements by Churches

If there were any big winners in the 2016 presidential election it was the Christofascists who appear well on their way toward achieving a Christian dominionist America.  Reportedly, Christian extremist Jerry Falwell Jr., a man who is anti-science and who supports the teaching of creationism will head an education reform task force under Donald Trump and is keen to cut university regulations, including rules on dealing with campus sexual assault.  With Trump's potential "religious freedom" executive order and/or the passage of the "First Amendment Defense Act," Christofascists will be above a myriad of non-discrimination laws and state and local nondiscrimination protections will be voided.   Now, Trump said his administration would “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law that prohibits churches from endorsing or opposing political candidates at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status. As noted in a column in the Washington Post, Christian Sharia law is coming to America.  The New York Times looks at Trump's latest frightening promise to Christofascists.  Here are highlights:

President Trump vowed on Thursday to overturn a law restricting political speech by tax-exempt churches, a potentially huge victory for the religious right and a gesture to evangelicals, a voting bloc he attracted to his campaign by promising to free up their pulpits.

Mr. Trump said his administration would “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law that prohibits churches from endorsing or opposing political candidates at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status.

“Freedom of religion is a sacred right, but it is also a right under threat all around us,” Mr. Trump told religious leaders at the National Prayer Breakfast. “That is why I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution.”

Repealing the law would require approval by Congress, which could prove challenging given that Democrats, and even some Republicans, would resist what many view as an erosion of the separation between church and state.

Eliminating the measure has been a goal of many social conservatives, who argue that it unfairly restricts clergy members from expressing themselves by endorsing, or speaking out against, political candidates.

Many see government persecution in limits on their official religious activities at work, and complain that the Internal Revenue Service — an agency that the right views with a special ire — singles out churches dominated by Christian conservatives.

It was one of several checklist items that religious conservative leaders told Mr. Trump were important to them. And they reacted to his announcement with delight.

Few Americans had even heard of the Johnson Amendment when Mr. Trump turned it into a rallying cry during the campaign. He told a crowd at the Iowa fairgrounds last August, “It denies your pastors their right to free speech, and has had a huge negative impact on religion.”

No one lobbied Mr. Trump to make the amendment an issue, said Johnnie Moore, a Christian publicist who serves on the president’s evangelical advisory board. He said Mr. Trump himself fixed on it in his first campaign meeting with the board members last June at Trump Tower.

Mr. Trump asked them why they did not have the courage to speak out more during elections. When the pastors informed him that they could lose their tax-exempt status, Mr. Trump declared the law unfair.

In meetings since then between Mr. Trump and pastors, whether in public or private, Mr. Moore said, Mr. Trump consistently says, “Everybody in this country has freedom of speech, except for you.” 

Churches and clergy members are free to speak out on political and social issues — and many do — but the Johnson Amendment was intended to inhibit them from endorsing or opposing political candidates.

Separately, the Free Speech Fairness Act was introduced in the House and the Senate on Wednesday. The bill would modify the Johnson Amendment by allowing churches and other charities to engage in political expression.

However, most Americans, and even most clergy members, say they do not want churches and houses of worship to engage in partisan politics. Nearly 80 percent of Americans said it was inappropriate for pastors to endorse a candidate in church, and 75 percent said churches should not make endorsements, according to a survey released in September by LifeWay Research, an evangelical polling group based in Nashville.

As with everything else with Trump, what a majority of Americans want and/or support means nothing.  Rather it is all about empowering the ugly minority that put him in office due to a fluke in the Electoral College that made Hillary Clinton's winning of the popular vote meaningless. 

At GOP's Urging, Texas Supreme Court to Consider Voiding Gay Spousal Rights

Trump with Texas anti-gay Christofacist extremist Robert Jeffress

And so it begins.  Many in the LGBT community had worried that Trump's election would embolden anti-gay Republicans to begin trying to strip away LGBT rights - something that seemingly meant nothing to "friends" who voted for Trump. Now, the Texas GOP has pressured the Texas Supreme Court to take a case considering whether or not same sex spouses of employees of the City of Houston can have their spousal rights rescinded.  If the Texas GOP prevails, the spouses of gay employees will not receive insurance and other benefits enjoyed by their heterosexual co-workers' spouses.   And, if this happens in Texas, other anti-gay states will surely seek to follow suit.  Here are highlights from the Dallas Morning News:  

The Texas Supreme Court said Friday it will decide whether the husbands and wives of gay city employees in Houston deserve spousal benefits, a surprising and rare about-face spurred by pressure from Gov. Greg Abbott and dozens of other top Republicans.

"No city employee — whether heterosexual or homosexual — has a 'fundamental right' to receive employee benefits for his or her spouse," reads the lawsuit against Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. "It is perfectly constitutional for the government to offer benefits or subsidies to some married couples while withholding those benefits from others."

Last September, Texas' justices declined to hear the case, just months after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. But Jack Pidgeon and Larry Hicks, a pastor and CPA from Houston, asked the court to reconsider, arguing that legalizing gay marriage does not mean cities must require the spouses of LGBT city employees to get the same benefits extended to heterosexual husbands and wives.

Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton agreed, writing a "friend of the court" brief that argued extending spousal benefits is separate from legalizing marriage for same-sex couples.

"[The U.S. Supreme Court's] judgment does not include a command that public employers like the City of Houston take steps beyond recognizing same-sex marriage," Abbott, Patrick and Paxton wrote. "Steps like subsidizing same-sex marriages [through the allocation of employee benefits] on the same terms as traditional marriages."The GOP leaders filed their brief in late October. Earlier that month, dozens of state lawmakers and religious leaders also urged the court to reconsider its decision.
The court will hear oral arguments in the case March 1.

While their ruling will be narrow — it will apply only to city employees in Houston — the decision will either reinforce the rights of gay Americans or chip away at their victory in gaining the right to marry. 

In their last brief, lawyers for Houston argue that denying the same benefits to gay couples that you extend to heterosexual couples is unconstitutional. They added that while Abbott, Patrick and Paxton claim spousal benefits shouldn't be guaranteed to government employees, the state of Texas has extended this right to state employees since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015. 

The Truth the Public Needs to Know About Mike Pence

As I predicted last night prior to the vice presidential debate, Mike Pence, Donald Trump's fellow fascist, largely hid his virulent homophobia and Tim Kaine only addressed the issue in passing.  The most obvious thing about Pence's performance was his willingness to lie - a prevailing trait among Christofascist - and deny that Donald Trump had made all of the statements that Tim Kaine accused him of.  Never mind that Trump's vile statements about Muslims, minorities and women and/or praise of Vladimir Putin are all captured on video or Trump's own tweets.  (Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway's attempts at spin after the debate were equally false and made a tawdry whore look like the height of truthfulness in comparison).  Truth be told, Pence favors a form of Christian Sharia law - just like the Taliban and ISIS seek for Islam.  The man is dangerous.  A piece in Salon looks at the real Mike Pence who in many ways is a small scale clone of Trump.  Here are excerpts:

Most voters outside the Hoosier State know fairly little about Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, a lifelong social conservative who served in Congress for 12 years, as governor for three years and is a favorite of the Koch Brothers.

As a young lawyer, Pence ran for Congress in 1988 and lost. When he ran again two years later, he used political donations to pay for his home mortgage, his personal credit card and grocery bills, golf tournament fees and his wife’s car payments, reports The Washington Post. While the payments were not illegal at the time, The Post reports “it stunned voters — and undermined Pence’s strategy to portray the incumbent, Rep. Philip R. Sharp, as tainted by donations from special-interest political action committees.” The article goes on to describe how the mistake transformed Pence politically and led to changes in national campaign finance policy.

During his 12 years in the House, Pence introduced 90 bills and resolutions, though none became law. “His interest was more in preventing things from happening — spending, taxing, expanding liberal social policy,” reports Hulse. He fought against several of President George W. Bush’s policies, including No Child Left Behind and the extension of Medicare Part D.

A post by the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Rothfeder — “Mike Pence’s Free Market Ideology: An Awkward Fit for Trump” — describes Pence as a “fervent anti-Keynesian” who “firmly opposes government spending on jobs programs and private-sector initiatives.” As a congressman, Pence voted against every federal stimulus package. As governor, he cut taxes for corporations and individuals. 

Pence is (surprise, surprise) a climate change denier — just like Trump. . . . “Pence helped kill Indiana’s successful energy efficiency program” and his incredibly low lifetime rating (4 percent!) on the League of Conservation Voters’ National Environmental Scorecard.

While Donald Trump now claims he never supported the war in Iraq, Pence supported it all along. On Libya, the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein writes, Pence “praised Hillary Clinton for her handling of the chaos” in the early days of civil unrest and backed the administration’s intervention. As time went on, however, Pence “soured on the mission.” Last week, Pence claimed that Clinton didn’t “send help” during the Benghazi attacks, which Politifact deemed false.

 In an interview with “60 Minutes” this past weekend Pence said he is in favor of “enhanced” interrogation techniques [i.e., torture] — just like Trump.

Before Trump’s VP announcement, Pence did not have the name recognition of someone like Chris Christie, but many may remember that in 2015 he signed into law Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which would have allowed businesses to refuse service to gay patrons based on their religious beliefs. After many businesses and others protested, Pence signed an amended version of the law that was intended to provide protection for sexual orientation and gender identity.Mother Jones’s Hannah Levintova reports on this and other anti-gay-rights bills he supported while in Congress.

This past March, Gov. Pence signed a measure “prohibiting women from obtaining an abortion because of the race, gender or disability of the fetus.” Indiana is the second state in the nation to implement such laws. While in Washington, Pence pushed for defunding Planned Parenthood and as governor slashed funding of clinics that provided STD testing, which led to an outbreak of HIV, Mother Jones reports.