by Ray Hayes
Last Wednesday, President Trump promised to “destroy” President Johnson’s amendment which prevents churches and religious organizations from endorsing political candidates. According to CNN, an earlier version of the order allowed for discrimination against the LGBT community. “The order stops short of offering broad exceptions for groups to deny services based on religious grounds. An earlier version of the order, which had previously leaked to The Nation, would have provided sweeping legal protections for people to claim religious exemptions, provisions that civil liberties groups claimed would allow for discrimination against LGBT Americans.”
In the past, many religious leaders have stated that the Johnson Amendment prohibits their right to free speech. Now this is foreign to me to say the least as almost every church I have attended has tried to sway their congregation to a certain political party or candidate.
Interfaith Alliance president Rabbi Jack Moline stated that the President’s new order could cause a lot of issues within the faith community. “If the effort succeeds,” Moline said, “these churches would become conduits for unregulated ‘dark money’ in elections, with no restrictions or disclosure requirements.”
During our next podcast, Jaymie and I will dive further into this topic and give our full thoughts. The podcast will be released on Monday, May 8th so please tune in.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/politics/trump-religious-liberty-executive-order/index.html