Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a government-wide legal guidance memo on Friday that encourages sweeping protection of religious freedom within government agencies. The 25-page memo delivered to every federal agency could impact important policy decisions across federal agencies, and the announcement comes as a direct result of an executive order signed in May by President Trump, promoting religious liberty.
In his statement, Sessions said:
“Our freedom as citizens has always been inextricably linked with our religious freedom as a people. It has protected both the freedom to worship and the freedom not to believe. Every American has a right to believe, worship, and exercise their faith. The protections for this right, enshrined in our Constitution and laws, serve to declare and protect this important part of our heritage.
“As President Trump said, ‘Faith is deeply embedded into the history of our country, the spirit of our founding and the soul of our nation . . . [this administration] will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced anymore.’
“The constitutional protection of religious beliefs and the right to exercise those beliefs have served this country well, have made us one of the most tolerant countries in the world, and have also helped make us the freeist and most generous. President Trump promised that this administration would ‘lead by example on religious liberty,’ and he is delivering on that promise.”
The administration has also announced that private businesses with a religious objection to the contraception requirement of Obamacare will be exempt from that requirement. They have presumably done so because of the Hobby Lobby case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “closely held companies” do not lose their religious liberties just because they go into business. In that case, the U.S. government were denying Hobby Lobby owners their right to live out their sincerely-held faith in their business by forcing them to pay huge fines if they didn’t agree to violate their own religious beliefs by providing employee health plans that included drugs and devices that can terminate life.
Religious organizations immediately praised the actions of Sessions and the Justice Department as a welcome change from the anti-faith policies of the previous administration. Officials say that the legal guidance is not intended to legalize discrimination, but to ensure that religious organizations are viewed equally with secular ones in the eyes of the law. Sessions also announced that any proposed federal agency action sent to the Department of Justice will be vetted by the Justice’s Office of Legal Policy and Civil Rights Division for any adverse effect on religious liberty protections.
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