Jeff Sessions' 'religious liberty task force' part of a dangerous Christian nationalist campaign of discrimination
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
With the help of politicians like Jeff Session, religious leaders are trying to redefine religious liberty as a tool of discrimination.
In the Trump administration’s latest effort to deliver on promises to its base, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new “religious liberty task force” at the Department of Justice. Sessions made the announcement at a Religious Liberty Summit, which was backed by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). But a closer look at what Sessions and groups like the ADF mean when they talk about “religious liberty” makes clear how both religion and freedom are being redefined by this administration to serve an extreme agenda. It’s time for people who care about the future of democratic society to reclaim the concept of religious liberty.
Plenty of Americans still value the separation of church and state and, along with it, the establishment clause’s guarantee of freedom of conscience for all people. Outside the circles of the extreme right, religious liberty has long been a progressive value, celebrated by abolitionists, tax resisters, conscientious objectors and religious minorities alike. So long as an American respects the legal rights of his neighbor, the Constitution promises him the freedom to obey his own conscience when it comes to matters of religious conviction.
But when groups like the ADF talk about religious liberty, they are really talking about liberty for one specific religion — Christianity. In this context, the phrase has become a rallying cry for Christian conservatives whose religious and political interests align around issues like reversing Roe v. Wade and rolling back LGBT protections. Indeed, in their study “Make America Christian Again,” sociologists Andrew Whitehead, Samuel Baker, and Joseph Perry conclude, independent of other influences, Christian nationalism was the single most determinative indicator of support for candidate Donald Trump in the 2016.
Founded in 1994 as the Alliance Defense Fund, the ADF is a legal advocacy and organizing coalition for Christian nationalists that has been aggressive in pushing for a decidedly unequal definition of religious liberty. The ADF believes not only that America was founded as a Christian nation, but also that religious conservatives like themselves must save America from moral decline. Sessions and the Trump administration’s ties to the ADF are well-known — in 2017, Sessions consulted the ADF while drafting new DOJ guidance on how to interpret federal religious liberty protections.
The ADF seems particularly focused on limiting the liberty of LGBT Americans , however. In his 2003 book “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principle Threat to Religious Freedom Today,” former ADF president Alan Sears accused fellow Americans who advocated for marriage equality of a secret agenda to “lead young men and women into homosexual behavior.” In Sears’ conspiracy theory, gay marriage is part of a larger plot to silence conservative Christians.
This idea that LGBT and other minorities were threatening the rights of the Christian majority gained traction during the decade when marriage equality was winding its way through the federal courts. Painting themselves as victims of an amoral scheme, Christian nationalists have argued that their religious freedom is slowly but surely being curtailed by gay wedding cakes and transgender bathroom bills.
Like Sessions, apparently, Trump has embraced this narrative wholesale. In his declaration celebrating Religious Freedom Day on January 16, 2018 , he wrote that “No American — whether a nun, nurse, baker, or business owner — should be forced to choose between the tenants of faith or adherence to the law.”
In reality, these arguments boil down to one thing: discrimination. It is not enough for Christian nationalists to freely exercise their vision of a good life. In the name of “liberty,” they want the right to discriminate against those with whom they disagree.
As a Christian minister myself, I’m both offended by this abuse of faith and troubled by the lack of moral outrage against it. Whatever our political commitments, the Bible calls Christians to love God by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. This is why Baptists in colonial America argued against the establishment of religious tests by governing authorities.
In colonial Virginia, John Leland, whose writings on religious liberty influenced Thomas Jefferson and the Constitution, was an abolitionist. Because he knew that the state church was controlled by slaveholders, he insisted that men must have the right to teach the good news of liberty for all people.
As a person of faith, I recognize others’ rights to try to persuade their neighbors to ascribe to their deeply held beliefs. But I cannot remain silent while religious leaders try to redefine religious liberty as a tool of discrimination — and enlist government officials to push this agenda on a federal scale.
Christian nationalists like Jerry Falwell, Jr., Paula White, Robert Jeffress and Franklin Graham are consistently called upon to offer a “religious perspective” on issues of public concern. My own free conscience compels me to call their bluff, and I hope others will join me .
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is a Baptist minister in Durham, North Carolina and the author of "Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom From Slaveholder Religion."
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Jeff Sessions has always been a friend of bigotry.
Jeff Sessions is a flat out racist, period.
and this,
Can't follow the thread, eh?
We call it sweeping generalizations.
Generalizations....
Since he hasn't answered you, here's the answer within context . Sessions said them many years ago .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/02/jeff-sessionss-comments-on-race-for-the-record/?utm_term=.2caa90069417
Yes, since then he's learned to be a little less overt with his racism. He prefers to simply support bigoted legislation instead of coming right out and saying he is a fan of the KKK.
Thank you for your opinion. People do evolve over their lifetimes. Obama and the Clintons changed their views several times and so can Sessions.
Except the bigoted little troll Session has not changed his views. He's still a bigot.
Has he publicly apologized for his past positions and worked to support civil rights legislation and the voting rights act for decades thus even gaining praise from the NAACP?
"What difference does it make?"
😂😂😂😂😂
It is when you're inferring that there is no difference between Sessions and Byrd when it comes to their past infatuation with the KKK. Bryd made several public apologies and then spent his legislative career working FOR civil rights. Sessions has stopped openly admiring the KKK but continued to push policies that supported discrimination for decades. During his confirmation hearing for a judgeship he had been offered by the Reagan administration, Gerry Hebert, then a trial attorney in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, who worked frequently with Sessions, testified that he told Sessions that a judge had called a white lawyer a “disgrace to his race” because he represented black clients. “Well, maybe he is,” Sessions allegedly responded. Sessions did not deny that he made a comment similar to the one alleged about the lawyer being “a disgrace to his race.”
Sessions' longtime assistant, Thomas Figures, who was black, testified that Sessions repeatedly referred to him as “boy” and said the senator talked about groups like the NAACP being “un-American” and “forc[ing] civil rights down the throats of people.”.
“The NAACP and other civil rights organizations, when they leave the basic discriminatory questions and start getting into matters such as foreign policy and things of that nature and other political issues and that is probably something I should not have said, but I really did not mean any harm by it,” he said. He also said he liked to stop by Figures' desk and “philosophize.”.
Yeah, he "philosophized" alright, about why he couldn't be an open racist and just act the way his prejudiced Keebler elf heart really felt.
I see that you're out for another stroll in my neighborhood. Have a good time. Click.
Given his open opposition to public accommodations laws and the Voting Rights Act, I can guarantee that Sessions will never win any awards from the NAACP, ACLU or any other civil rights group.
Heck, he even works for the white supremacist King of the Birthers.
Better than being the master debater.
So maybe Obama and Hillary still believe marriage is between a man and a woman. Possibly they changed their tune when it was politically expedient, but really harbor their hatred toward gays?
Like you, I have no proof of such, so I guess they can be considered bigots too, huh?
???????????
I answered your original question:
"Think maybe he took lessons from Robert Byrd or Al Gore, Sr.?"
The answer was "no" made obvious by the fact that Sessions hasn't publicly apologized for his past admiration for white supremacists and the KKK. Session didn't spend decades in the legislature supporting equal rights, protecting the civil rights act and voting rights act, in fact it was just the opposite. This isn't a deflection, it's a fact. The differences between the deceased repetitively repentive Byrd and the perpetually prejudiced Sessions could not be more pronounced. You're trying to excuse a Republicans actions, Trump pick for AG, by pointing to someone else's bad past actions, that means you've already lost the debate.
You beat me to it. He really has no clue what it means, has he?
Excellent article, thanks for this!
What was good about it? Nothing.
Good because it exposes the ruse of trying to use a phony claim of religious persecution to set the government on a path of establishing religion--specifically in helping to propagate the bogus claim that religious freedom is threatened by not allowing people to use their religious prejudices to discriminate. If this sounds familiar it was how whites used religious belief to justify slavery this country.
In fact Sessions recently cited the same bible-babble passage which his fellow white supremacists once used to justify slavery, but this time he used it to justify Trump's xenophobic plot to separate refugee children from their refugee parents. What a clueless and racist asshole!
Actually, it had no value.
... to those continually using "religious liberty" to obfuscate their indoctrinated prejudices and hate.
Show me where I have ever posted something...ANYTHING about religion. ( deleted )
Well the article we're discussing talks about it in detail, so I guess,
it had no value... to those continually using "religious liberty" to obfuscate their indoctrinated prejudices and hate, and you for no reason.
In reality, these arguments boil down to one thing: discrimination. It is not enough for Christian nationalists to freely exercise their vision of a good life. In the name of “liberty,” they want the right to discriminate against those with whom they disagree.
this seems to be true of many of the religious, including quite a few who post here on NT - it seems they wish to have legalized discrimination without realizing long term consequences of such actions
Great article.
That is as plain as one can make it. And it's true.
In related news the Trump regime has abandoned the traditional US support for basic human rights overseas and is now endorsing the persecution of minorities when Christian superstitions are used as an excuse.
We've seen it with the baker that wouldn't bake a cake for a gay couple and the Davis shit stain that refused to issue marriage licenses to gays and few other instances that I'm sure I'm forgetting right now.
I read an article where Sessions was saying that they are going to use this as a guide on how they will operate on prosecutions and what they will or will not defend.
Would that not be picking and choosing winners and losers? I call that selectively using the law to their own advantage.
It's also unconstitutionally extending privileges to particular superstitious groups, a rather clear violation of the Establishment clause.
Media Matters has two excellent articles on this topic, the first showing the ties between Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence and the ADF anti-LGBT hate group. Perhaps the most shocking thing is that Sessions has actually hired at least one of the hate group's attorneys to work in the DOJ, Kerri Kupec. It's like the DOJ hiring the KKK's attorney.
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The next links detail the extent of the ADF hate group's anti-LGBT agenda, including their efforts to re-criminalize homosexuality both here and abroad. These are some pretty twisted and immoral theocratic fucks:
Media matters? Really? You could try something from someone with at last some credibility?
Sounds like you'll need to get your fake news from Fox or even directly from the ADF hate group. Or you can just have the Russians tell you what to think.
Any and all the sources you named would still be more valid and less biased than media matters. Oh and I am not a liberal so I don't need anyone to tell me how tothink
Ummmm.......what bias or inaccuracy? They merely documented the ADF hate group's words and deeds. Do you dispute those or are you merely carrying water for an anti-LGBT hate group?
The ADF is a great group of good people. It’s the SPLC that is a hate group that triggered a domestic terrorist to attack the ADF HQ.
I must call "BULLSHIT" on that utterly false statement. The SPLC identifies hate groups. Deal with it...
As our Bigot-in-Chief said, they're "Very fine people."
I like the meme used as the seed icon. Very telling.
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LOL......sounds like Sessions is having the same heartburn as when the civil rights of black folks were enforced through the 1964 Civil Rights Act. How unfair that a racist Southern Baptist and BBQ restaurant owner couldn't deny service to blacks, or a racist Southern Baptist baker deny service to mixed-race couples! Such an infringement of religious liberty!
"Like Sessions, apparently, Trump has embraced this narrative wholesale. In his declaration celebrating Religious Freedom Day on January 16, 2018 , he wrote that “No American — whether a nun, nurse, baker, or business owner — should be forced to choose between the tenants of faith or adherence to the law.”
Isn't that 'tenets'? dumbfucks.
Reminds me of Kagan talking about how the first amendment (which includes the free excercise there of of religious beliefs) is being weaponized when it is used to defend conservatives instead of traditional liberal causes.
Slavery was one of those beliefs that religion was used to justify, too.
You are partially correct. Religious freedom cannot violate someone else's civil rights.
Much like the supreme court ruled that 2nd amendment rights are not unlimited, they also ruled that religious freedom rights are not unlimited. You cannot use your supposed "religious freedom" rights to impose on someone else's religious freedom. If your religion believes in human sacrifice, obviously religious freedom doesn't include kidnapping someone and murdering them. The same is true for using it to justify slavery (as it once was justified by many Christians, especially the Southern Baptists) and segregation and the bans on interracial marriage, all defended by people claiming religious freedom rights but whose argument was shot down by the courts.
The diarrhea flows so swiftly from the Trump regime that even the Daily Show can't keep up with it, not even the truly bizarre stuff. So they're a week late in ridiculing the " Religious Liberty Task Force " but they finally got around to it: