LAST month, surrounded by a throng of beaming pastors, nuns and rabbis in the White House’s Rose Garden, Donald Trump signed an executive order “promoting free speech and religious liberty”. Many religious leaders complained that it did no such thing: trumpeted as a move to allow the faithful to avoid activities that clashed with their beliefs it instead mostly amounted to a restatement of the Johnson Amendment, a rule from 1954 that makes churches’ tax-exempt status contingent upon them doing little political advocacy.
But the order also instructed various government departments to consider amending a controversial regulation in the Affordable Care Act which require most employers to cover birth control in their insurance plans. “With this executive order, we are ending the attacks on your religious liberty!” proclaimed Mr Trump that day to a group of nuns from the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic order that has waged war on the birth-control mandate since it was introduced in 2011. They...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2qFUqsU
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