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Watch: Kevin McCarthy leads Republicans in prayer at hate group-sponsored event

David Badash

and The New Civil Rights Movement

February 01, 2023

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy joined hands with more than a dozen House Republicans, leading them in prayer at Wednesday’s National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance, an event co-sponsored by several far-right Christian organizations, at least five of which appear on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups.

The California Republican specifically mentioned his upcoming meeting later Wednesday with President Joe Biden, when the two will discuss the debt ceiling, which Republicans want to leverage to massively cut federal spending on programs critical to keeping many Americans alive, including Social Security and Medicare – or shut down the federal government if Democrats do not agree to their terms.

“Father, I want to lift up those who are not here today. I want you to open their hearts,” McCarthy prayed. “Father, I want to lift up the president. Father, you know I will meet with him today. Father, I ask. I asked that you open both of our hearts that you put our meaning, our meaning that seeks your truth. And the help for this nation. Father, we know as we struggle, is we come up short and again but continue to seek your guidance. We ask that you give us the patience of Job. We ask that you give us the intellect the leadership that you gave David we ask that you give us the boldness.”

The event was held at the Museum of the Bible, a non-profit founded by right-wing evangelical activist David Green and the Green family. Green is the founder of Hobby Lobby, the privately-held chain store that won a Supreme Court case enshrining into U.S. jurisprudence the concept that for-profit corporations can and do have religious beliefs.

READ MORE: Principal Ordered Librarian to Take Down Holocaust Survivor’s Famous Quote Just Days Before Holocaust Remembrance Day

The five groups sponsoring the event which also appear on the SPLC’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups include the American Family Association (AFA), the Family Research Council (FRC), the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Liberty Counsel, and the Pacific Justice Institute.

Other attendees included anti-LGBTQ activists, like “right-wing pastor Andrew Brunson, who blasted the United States as ‘the primary corrupter of the world’ because ‘our government and corporations increasingly march under the rainbow flag,'” he said, as Right Wing Watch reported.

Also, two “ex-gay” activists.

Later, the Republicans, including McCarthy, were prayed over byTony Perkins,the longtime head of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council. Perkins has also served as chair and vice chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent federal government commission.

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Far-right House Republican U.S. Rep. Randy Weber of Texas descended into an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ tirade during which he invoked “the blood of the lamb” to telegraph to McCarthy his concerns about U.S. debt}:.

Weber is an original co-sponsor of the federal “Don’t Say Gay” bill. He once compared then-President Barack Obama to Hitler.

Right Wing Watch reports some of the Members of Congress who attended include Reps. Mary Miller, Diana Harshbarger, Steve Scalise, Rick Allen, Brian Babin, Michael Cloud, Robert Aderholt, Tracey Mann, Burgess Owens, Gary Palmer, Michelle Steel, Warren Davidson, Brandon Williams, Dan Bishop, Nathaniel Moran, and Mike Johnson.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Vows to Use DOJ and Congress to Make Being Transgender Illegal While Promoting the ‘Nuclear Family’

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Anti-civil rights organizations go all-in on election denial

Groups mostly known for opposing abortion and trans rights are partners in the election denial movement

Written by John Knefel

Published 10/29/24 9:18 AM EDT

Several right-wing organizations known mostly for opposing abortion, immigration, and trans rights are also involved in supporting and funding election denial groups, a sign of the issue’s centrality to the MAGA movement.

Following former President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020 and subsequent attempts to remain in power, a complicated and sprawling web of organizations emerged to sow doubt about future elections and spread debunked and baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud. Stringing these overlapping efforts together is the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, an umbrella organization connecting state and national election denial efforts with the broader right-wing policy ecosystem. These groups also significantly overlap with Project 2025, an effort organized by The Heritage Foundation to provide the next Republican presidential administration with staffing and policy recommendations.

Even as early as March 2021, mere months after Trump’s multifaceted effort to reverse the 2020 election, socially conservative groups began pouring money into election denial initiatives. That trend has only accelerated in the intervening years, with a host of anti-civil rights groups — often euphemistically characterized as engaged in the “culture wars” — having expanded their operations to include so-called election integrity.

These groups include the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, the anti-trans American Principles Project, a fund run by Hobby Lobby founder David Green, and high-profile right-wing charities National Christian Charitable Foundation and Christian Community Foundation, among others.

One of the primary myths that the election denial movement has spread this cycle concerns noncitizen voting, which experts agree is exceedingly rare. This manufactured scandal synthesizes two key pillars of the MAGA movement — demonizing immigrants and claiming that elections are rigged against right-wing candidates. The partners listed in the Only Citizens Vote Coalition include anti-immigrant groups the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Immigration Accountability Project, illustrating how election denial groups have incorporated nativism into their movement. Both FAIR and IAP have strong links to the Tanton network, named after John Tanton, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center refers to as the “the racist architect of the modern anti-immigrant movement.”

Here are some of the anti-civil rights organizations also taking part in the election denial movement.

Several large right-wing donor organizations that are historically known for pushing social conservative issues have begun funding election denial groups in recent years.

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From electric vehicles to cosmetics, and even the word “mummy,” there is a lot of rebranding going on.

Bowing to anger from right-wingers and conservative commentators, M&M’s decided to rebrand the decades-old multi-colored candies after outrage over its latest addition, purple, and its new “spokescandy,” also named “Purple.”

“Roughly a year ago, Mars Wrigley updated the look of its M&M’s characters, announcing an initiative to make the mascots fit a ‘more dynamic, progressive world.’ As part of these changes, the company introduced new designs of some of M&M’s characters and wrote weirdly elaborate backstories for others. Most notably, the company made the green M&M less ‘sexy’ by shortening her legs and replacing her high-heeled boots with sneakers,” Vox Media’s Polygon reported last week.

Fox News personality Tucker Carlson infamously has waged war on the “woke” spokescandies, declaring at one point, “M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous.”

Fast forward to now: Actress and comedian Maya Rudolph is their new spokesperson, although the “spokescandies,” perhaps after some additional rebranding, will be returning in a new ad on Super Bowl Sunday.

Which brings us to the rebranding of another icon: Jesus Christ.

He too will be part of the Super Bowl Sunday ads.

READ MORE: Trump-Aligned Christian Nationalist Group ‘Taps Into Unholy Well’ That Threatens Democracy

Over the next three years a $1 billion mostly-dark-money campaign – which reportedly will include funds from billionaire right wing anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ funder **David Green**, the founder of Hobby Lobby – will promote Jesus in ads, including during the Super Bowl on February 12. Those two Super Bowl ads to “to redeem Jesus’ brand” will cost $20 million, Religion News Service reports.

The campaign to promote Jesus includes $100 million in ads declaring “He Gets Us,” from “the Servant Foundation, an Overland Park, Kansas, nonprofit that does business as The Signatry,” RNS adds.

The “donors backing the campaign have until recently remained anonymous — in early 2022, organizers only told Religion News Service that funding came from ‘like-minded families who desire to see the Jesus of the Bible represented in today’s culture with the same relevance and impact He had 2000 years ago.'”

But the full list of donors remains unknown.

“Jason Vanderground, president of Haven, a branding firm based in Grand Haven, Michigan, that is working on the ‘He Gets Us’ campaign, confirmed that the Greens are one of the major funders, among a variety of donors and families who have gotten behind it.”

READ MORE: Pelosi Attack Video Release Leads to Criticism of Musk, Right Wingers Who ‘Trafficked in Homophobic Conspiracy Nonsense’

In a Washington Post interview last year, Vanderground “said Christians see their faith as the greatest love story, but those outside the faith see Christians as a hate group.”

But rather than try to convince self-identified followers of Christ to act as Jesus would want, right-wing interests are spending $1 billion to convince others of what Christianity is supposed to be about.

“Our research shows that many people’s only exposure to Jesus is through Christians who reflect him imperfectly, and too often in ways that create a distorted or incomplete picture of his radical compassion and love for others,” Vanderground told The Washington Post. “We believe it’s more important now than ever for the real, authentic Jesus to be represented in the public marketplace as he is in the Bible.”

Some are not impressed, and are more-or-less asking, “What would Jesus do?”

“They are latching on to this touchy-feely, conveniently vague, designer Jesus,” podcaster, author, and secular activist Seth Andrews told RNS. Andrews “poses the question of what Jesus would think of the amount of money spent on the ads. Would he prefer that the money be spent on ministering to people’s physical needs or making the world a better place?”

READ MORE: McCarthy Sat for an Interview With Trump Jr. – One Bragged About an ‘Illegal’ Act, One Wished His Dad Would ‘Show Some’ Love

“Or would he say, no, go ahead and spend $100 million to tell everybody how great I am?”

On-air, CNN said, “at first blush, it can all read like a stand against radical right-wing politics and related divisiveness,” but adds that “some are calling this a ‘right-wing stunt for politics.'”

“‘He Gets Us’ is funded by anonymous donors acting through a Kansas non-profit linked to staunchly conservative causes,” CNN’s report (video below) notes, saying it “raises alarms for some skeptics.”

Watch CNN’s report below or at this link.

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Advocates for court reform on Saturday called for Congress to investigate allegations that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leaked a 2014 ruling to a right-wing donor, after The New York Times reportedon the claim by a former leader of the pro-forced pregnancy movement.

Rev. Ron Schenck led an evangelical Christian nonprofit organization in 2014 when the court ruled onHobby Lobby v. Burwell, which allowed religious organizations to deny employees healthcare coverage for contraception.

The Times spent months investigating Schenck's claim—which he also detailed in a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts in June—thatAlito leaked the court's decisionin the case to one of his top donors, three weeks before the ruling was publicly announced.

Schenck used his knowledge of the ruling to "prepare a public relations push," the Times reported, as well as telling the president of Hobby Lobby about it.

During his time as a crusader against abortion rights—an issue on which he's since changed his viewpoint—Schenck "recruited wealthy donors... encouraging them to invite some of the justices to meals, to their vacation homes, or to private clubs. He advised allies to contribute money to the Supreme Court Historical Society and then mingle with justices at its functions," reported the Times. "He ingratiated himself with court officials who could help give him access, records show."

Schenck sent a letter to Roberts in June—a month after the leak of a draft decision showing the court had voted to overturn Roe v. Wade—saying the information he gained about the Hobby Lobby ruling could be relevant to the court's inquiry into the recent leak. He told the Times he did not receive a response.

The story "strongly suggests Justice Alito leaked the 2014 opinion in Hobby Lobby, and describes a conspiracy by the far-right donor class to influence the Supreme Court Justices," said Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), calling for an investigation by the U.S. House. [twt]

brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice, which advocates for the expansion of the court and has called foran ethics probe into right-wing Justice Clarence Thomas's alleged conflicts of interest, said the Senate Judiciary Committee "should immediately move to investigate the apparent leak by Justice Alito."

"The whistleblower in this report, Rev. Rob Schenck, should be called to testify about both the leak and the yearslong lobbying effort he once led to cultivate Alito and other Republican justices," he added.

"This bombshell report is the latest proof that the Republican justices on the court are little more than politicians in robes," said Fallon. "It's no wonder trust in the Court has hit a record low. Structural reform of the court, including strict new ethics rules, is needed now more than ever."

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A federal judge with a lengthy history of deciding against LGBTQ people and in favor of the far Christian right has ruled the Affordable Care Act and the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services cannot require companies to cover the cost of an HIV prevention drug referred to as PrEP.

The plaintiffs sued the federal government claiming their business is a “Christian for-profit corporation” that “objects” to “coverage of preventive care such as contraceptives and PrEP drugs” on “religious grounds.” The plaintiffs, the lawsuit also says, “claim that compulsory coverage for those services violates their religious beliefs by making them complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior, drug use, and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman.”

HIV is not exclusive to people who engage in same-sex intimate relations, drug use, or sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman.

**U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor** (photo) of Texas, who ruled in 2018 that ObamaCare is unconstitutional, on Wednesday declared the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services “did not provide any ‘compelling’ evidence to argue that ‘private, religious corporations’ should be required to cover HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, commonly known as PrEP, ‘with no cost-sharing and no religious exemptions,'” as Axios reports.

READ MORE: Federal Judge Rules For-Profit Faith-Based Businesses Can Discriminate Against LGBTQ People

“O’Connor said HHS was unable to show that the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for HIV PrEP to be fully covered by insurance ‘furthers a compelling governmental interest.'”

Judge O’Connor in 2019 also overturned protections written into ObamaCare for transgender people, ruling they violate the religious rights of healthcare providers who hold religious beliefs that oppose the existence of transgender people.

Three years earlier, in 2016 O’Connor who at that point already had a record of opposing LGBT rights, handed down a 38-page order in a lawsuit brought by Texas **Attorney General Ken Paxton**on behalf of 13 states, blocking the Obama administration from enforcing its guidance that said public schools should allow transgender students to use restroom and locker rooms based on their gender identity.

READ MORE: Federal Judge Says Doctors Can Refuse To Treat Trans Patients Based On Religious Beliefs

On the very last day of 2016 Judge O’Connor ruled that physicians could refuse to treat transgender people based on their own religious beliefs. That injunction also came in response to a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Paxton.

Last year Judge O’Connor ruled that for-profit businesses and religious entities like churches can discriminate against LGBTQ people in employment.

Wednesday’s ruling was a win for Braidwood Management, a Katy, Texas company “which operates Christian health-care businesses controlled by Dr. Stephen Hotze,” Bloomberg Law has reported (incorrectly spelling Hotze’s first name.). **Steven Hotze** is a far-right Christian extremist, anti-LGBTQ activist, and GOP mega-donor. The Texas Tribune in April reported Hotze “was indicted on two felony charges related to his alleged involvement in an air conditioning repairman being held at gunpoint in 2020 during a bizarre search for fraudulent mail ballots that did not exist, according to his attorney, Gary Polland.”

aha: so rights of women are being stripped in the name of religious freedom [OF CORPORATIONS?]

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On July 21, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito gave a keynote address at the Notre Dame Law School/Religious Liberty Summit’s gala dinner in Rome, Italy, where he mocked and ridiculed European critics of the Court’s decision to overturn *Roe v. Wade*. Alito made it abundantly clear that he couldn’t care less what European officials think of that ruling, which ended abortion as a national right in the United States and allows individual states to ban abortion if they choose.

Journalist Linda Greenhouse is highly critical of Alito’s Religious Liberty Summit speech in a guest essay/op-ed published by the New York Times on August 11. Greenhouse has no problem with the fact that Alito is religious; the problem, she emphasizes, is the disdain Alito shows for those who aren’t.

Greenhouse describes Alito’s “snarky” speech as a “victory lap” following Roe’s demise and “a call to arms on behalf of religion.” Alito told the crowd in Rome, “The challenge for those who want to protect religious liberty in the United States, Europe and other similar places is to convince people who are not religious that religious liberty is worth special protection.”

READ MORE:** [**Samuel Alito mocks reactions to abortion ruling at religious summit**

“Justice Alito’s Notre Dame speech still merits close examination for what it reveals about the assumptions built into his worldview,” Greenhouse argues. “What does it mean, for example, to assert that it is ‘people who are not religious’ who need to be persuaded that religion is worthy of special treatment? Do all religiously observant people naturally believe that religion merits more protections than other values? There’s scant evidence for that; in any event, that has not been our law, at least not until recently.”

Alito, Greenhouse writes, is openly contemptuous of law professors who don’t share his views on religion and government.

“Justices and legal scholars alike have struggled for decades to identify the right balance for religion within a pluralistic society, an effort Justice Alito reduced to a cartoonish either/or,” Greenhouse notes. “Even were I willing to cut him some slack for loose talk among friends — I don’t know whether he was aware that Notre Dame would post the video online — I would still find the narrowness of his vision deeply disturbing. He offered no acknowledgment, none, of the harm that can occur when religion is elevated above all other claims to recognition and respect.”

Greenhouse continues, “For example, in the aftermath of his opinion in the2014 Hobby Lobby case, tens of thousands of women have never received the contraception coverage to which the Affordable Care Act entitled them because they work for employers with objections to particular forms of birth control. His opinion in 2020 extending the so-called ministerial exception to cover non-ministerial employees of religious organizations stripped those employees of the protection of federal laws that prohibit job discrimination. And, of course, the very opinion he bragged about to his audience in Rome, an opinion that as I have recently explained was grounded in religious doctrine rather than constitutional law, took no account of its devastating impact on women.”

READ MORE:**'Embarrassment to the Supreme Court': Samuel Alito ripped for taunting critics of his anti-abortion ruling**

Alito, according to Greenhouse, is a defender of “militant Christianity” — and the civil liberties of other Americans are suffering as a result of it.

“His religion does not reside in the quiet recesses of his home or chambers,” Greenhouse warns. “His is religion on the march. And that’s the problem the rest of us face now.”

READ MORE:**This former anti-abortion activist believes Alito used his rhetoric in Dobbs ruling**

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COVID-19 is laying bare which companies and politicians actually value workers

Laura Clawson / Daily Kos

Coronavirus continues to be not just the most important news story in the country (and the world), but the most important labor news story specifically. A record-breaking 3 million people filed…

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/the-christian-rights-perverse-hostility-to-science-is-definitely-going-to-get-people-killed/

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The Christian right’s perverse hostility to science is definitely going to get people killed

Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon March 26, 2020

Scientists and health experts largely agree on the steps needed to fight COVID-19, the rapidly spreading new coronavirus: Widespread testing, if possible. Widespread and often stringent social distancing protocols in communities where it’s taken root, to slow the spread. Hygienic practices like frequent hand-washing and sterilizing commonly touched surfaces. Protective gear, like masks in medical settings, to keep health care professionals from catching it and spreading it.

But when it comes to conservative evangelical Christians, who are already hostile to science on many levels, advice from health experts is all too often being treated as something that can be dismissed out of hand, if it threatens the political or theological goals of their movement.

To be clear, Christian right leaders aren’t denying that coronavirus is a real problem (at least not anymore). If anything, the bevy of snake oil salesman who call themselves ministers sees the panic around the virus as a marketing opportunity to make money from selling dangerous supplements, to declare the virus can be beaten with the power of prayer and to declare that the pandemic is a divine punishment inflicted on sinners.

But Christian right leaders are also not about to let medical science supersede their authority, much less get in the way of their quest for power and cold, hard cash. Because of this, the Christian right has become a vector of bad advice, misinformation and dreadful business decisions that are directly threatening the health not just of their followers, but the public at large.

Jerry Falwell Jr., the shamelessly greedy president of Liberty University, has spent weeks downplaying the coronavirus threat, accusing the media of wildly exaggerating it to “destroy the American economy” and of course to damage Donald Trump. While nearly every university and college in the country has shut down their campuses and moved to online teaching to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Falwell seems determined to keep Liberty open.

Falwell is already allowing students back on campus, claiming it’s more imporant “to give [students] the ability to be with their friends, to continue their studies, enjoy the room and board they’ve already paid for and to not interrupt their college life.”

Roy Moore, the Christian right figurehead and twice-failed Senate candidate brought low by multiple accusations of sexual misconduct, is similarly defiant of the calls for social distancing that threaten to disrupt in-person church activities.

“I am writing a letter to pastors on the duty to continue church assemblies, even in the midst of these trying times,” Moore wrote in an open letter, adding on Twitter that “churches are closed by tyrants who pander fear in the place of faith in God.”

Moore invoked the example of Dr. Benjamin Rush, the Declaration of Independence signer who stayed in Philadelphia and caught yellow fever during an epidemic in the 1790s. Of course, Rush risked his life to save people with his medical expertise, an entirely different situation than a pastor insisting that people must come to church.

To be clear, most churches, especially mainline Protestant and Catholic churches, are prioritizing the health of members and closing their doors for the duration the crisis, often pointing believers to online services. But the pressure to keep the doors open, when it comes from someone like Moore, is no small thing. He may seem like an offensive joke to many liberals, but Moore has immense influence in the world of evangelical Christianity, which often favors megachurches that gather hundreds or even thousands of people at once, and whose pastors have been reluctant to close their doors. Reports suggest many of these churches are defiantly refusing to cancel services.

Along with pastors who want those collection plates to keep flowing, at least one wealthy and prominent Christian right family is determined to keep its business open to the public. David Green, the owner of Hobby Lobby, is keeping most of his stores open during the pandemic, except those actually forced to shut down by local governments.

His reason? His wife, Barbara Green, prayed about it and decided to focus instead on “profound words to remind us that He’s in control.” Those words were “Guide, Guard and Groom,” though the P-word, “profit,” may also play a role.

The Green family, let’s remember, was behind a recent lawsuit in which the Supreme Court granted privately held corporations the right to block their employees from using health insurance plans to pay for contraception. The case was presented by the Greens and their religious right allies as a relatively minor question of balancing reproductive rights against religious freedom. In reality, the case was about opening the door, both legally and culturally, to Christian right demands that arbitrary religious beliefs should trump human rights, public health, science and government authority.

The presumption undergirding the Hobby Lobby case — that Christian conservatives should be able to defy the laws that the rest of us are bound by — wasn’t taken seriously by many people in mainstream politics at the time, perhaps because the victims were low-income female employees who wanted access to contraception. But post-Hobby Lobby, the Christian conservative belief that they’re entitled to exempt themselves from any laws or public health regulations they disagree with is shaping the reaction to the coronavirus — and threatening the health of everyone in the country.

Ilyse Hogue of NARAL pointed this out on Twitter Wednesday night, writing that Republicans have been co-opted by “a radical right for whom fundamentalism [has] completely supplanted any rational thought or science and data-based policy approaches.”

“We’ve seen them use disinformation” to block access to contraception, suppress LGBT rights and close abortion clinics, she noted, adding that “now they’re doing it at a national scale during a global pandemic.”

Indeed, the power the religious right now wields through the White House only amplifies the dangerous impact of its anti-science views on the coronavirus response. Vice President Mike Pence — a Christian conservative with a long history of anti-science views, including both denying that condoms are safe and cigarettes are dangerous — is running the White House coronavirus task force, which is no doubt one of the big reasons the U.S. has one of the worst responses to the pandemic in the world. Pence is also wasting time on conference calls with religious right leaders who are more interested in exploiting this crisis to force women to give birth against their will than in preventing thousands or millions of people from dying.

Trump himself has surrounded himself with a phalanx of Christian right pastors who are eager to lie to their flocks about what a great leader he is and to amplify his relentless drumbeat of lies and misinformation. This includes Dave Kubal, the head of Intercessors for America, who told an audience on a prayer call last week that coronavirus “testing has limited value.” This is flat-out untrue — testing has been a critical element in every country that’s been able to get the virus under control — but it suits Trump’s approach to the disease, which has been to minimize testing access in hopes of keeping the official number of cases artificially low.

The Christian right has always been a threat to public health. They were a threat during the AIDS crisis, when they successfully exerted pressure on Republican leaders to minimize the disease, which conservative Christians saw as a punishment for sinful behavior. They have contributed to the spread of all manner of STIs, in fact, by convincing schools to replace sex education with programs meant to discourage the use of condoms. They’ve encouraged fear of vaccinations, especially the HPV vaccine that prevents cervical and other forms of cancer, for no other reason except that HPV is an STI and therefore viewed, sigh, as punishment for sinners. They’ve blocked access to contraception and abortion to punish women for having sex, even though unwanted childbirth is linked to poorer health outcomes for women and children.

But this renegade right-wing movement has been allowed to run rampant because their cruelty and hostility to science primarily affected marginalized people, especially low-income women and LGBTQ people. Now their attitudes are a threat to everyone, rich or poor, of every race or gender or faith (including no faith). But the sad truth is that as long as Christian right leaders keep on shilling for Republicans, the party will close its eyes and embrace them, no matter how many people have to die.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/trumps-new-labor-rule-would-allow-massive-discrimination-by-for-profit-companies-broadest-protection-of-religious-exercise/

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Trump’s new labor rule would allow massive discrimination by for-profit companies: ‘Broadest protection of religious exercise’

Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement August 15, 2019

President Donald Trump’s Labor Department on Wednesday announced a new rule that not only would codify the “right” to discriminate into practice, but would help corporations do so. The new rule applies to federal contractors, who employ up to one quarter of all employees. As NCRM reported earlier, it would allow any company, corporation, or organization with a federal contract that claims it is either religious or faith-based or follows any sort of belief system – so-called “religion-exercising organizations” – to discriminate based on those beliefs.

The word “religion” appears 241 times in the 46-page draft document.

The draft rule says “religious employers can condition employment on acceptance of or adherence

to religious tenets,” and “should be construed to provide the broadest protection of religious exercise permitted by the Constitution and other laws.”

The ACLU calls it ” taxpayer-funded discrimination in the name of religion. Period.”

Buzzfeed calls it “Trump’s latest move to let religious people sidestep civil rights policies,” and says it allows federal contractors to “cite religious objections as a valid reason to discriminate against their workers on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, LGBTQ status, and other characteristics.”

The new rule would not apply only to, say, churches, Catholic hospitals, or even a privately-held company like Hobby Lobby – if Hobby Lobby were a federal contractor. It would allow discrimination at literally any federal contractor that can show it has a “religious purpose,” but makes clear: “This need not be the contractor’s only purpose.”

The National Center for Transgender Equality says the new rule “would allow federal contractors to apply for broad exemptions to civil rights law after engaging in discriminatory behavior, including firing or refusing to hire someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. It could also lead to federal contractors refusing to hire women or unmarried workers who are pregnant or parents, or even discrimination on the basis of race.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/us/politics/iraq-artifacts-hobby-lobby-ice.html

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WASHINGTON — The line of people snaked around the blue tablecloth, as government officials and archaeology scholars paused to admire the ancient clay tablets and seals lined in rows.

Here, in the backyard of the Iraqi ambassador’s home on Wednesday, was closure for these artifacts: a ceremonial transfer back to Iraq, where they had been looted from archaeological sites. Their coming return there will complete a long, circuitous voyage through Israel and the United Arab Emirates to Hobby Lobby, the arts and crafts chain, and eventually into the hands of the United States government.

The samples carefully lined on the table were just a small fraction of the thousands of smuggled artifacts that Immigration and Customs Enforcement formally returned on Wednesday.

“To have them in my residence is to underline that they’re coming home,” said Fareed Yasseen, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States, speaking after he and Thomas D. Homan, the acting director of ICE, signed the ceremonial transfer. “We really have a sense of kinship to these artifacts.”

The artifacts, which are from the second and third millennium B.C., will eventually be taken to the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad to be studied and displayed. Several tablets are from the ancient city of Irisagrig and date to between 2100 and 1600 B.C.

Hobby Lobby, which is owned by evangelical Christians known for their interest in the biblical Middle East, originally bought the collection from an unnamed dealer for $1.6 million in December 2010. The purchase, prosecutors later said, was completed despite being “fraught with red flags,” including warnings from an expert on cultural property law hired by the company that the artifacts were possibly taken from archaeological sites in Iraq.

“Stealing a nation’s cultural property and antiquities is one of the oldest forms of organized transnational crime,” said Mr. Homan, who will soon retire from the agency. He said more than 1,200 items had been returned to Iraq since 2008.

The collection included cuneiform tablets, ancient clay tablets that probably served as administrative and legal documentation in ancient Mesopotamia, and clay bullae, seal impressions about the size of a coin that served as signatures and proof that an item had not been tampered with. More than a dozen packages were shipped from Israel and the United Arab Emirates in early 2011 under the guise of tile samples to Hobby Lobby and two corporate affiliates. Customs and Border Protection intercepted a few of them.

In July, the federal government brought a civil complaint against Hobby Lobby, which agreed to forfeit the items. The company also agreed to a $3 million fine, to hire qualified outside customs counsel and to submit quarterly reports on any cultural property acquisitions for 18 months.

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“These artifacts are part of Iraq’s illustrious heritage and history,” said Richard P. Donoghue, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, “and we’re proud of our role in removing them from the black market in antiquities and returning them to their rightful owners.”

Hobby Lobby is known for its efforts to cultivate evangelical Christianity, including its owners’ heavy financial investment in the Museum of the Bible, which opened in Washington late last year. In 2014, it was involved in the landmark Supreme Court case that found that family-owned corporations could claim religious exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to pay for contraception coverage.

Hobby Lobby did not respond to requests for comment about the return of the artifacts. But at the time of the forfeiture in July,Steve Green, the company’s president, said the company was “new to the world of acquiring these items, and did not fully appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process.”

Many of the officials mingling in the ambassador’s backyard with glasses of apple cider and hors d’oeuvres had been involved in the seizure and the return of the artifacts. Others were archaeologists and Middle East scholars who had come forward in support of the items’ return, collectively admiring the condition and the intricacy of the designs on the seals. They pointed to favorites: the seal with the dancing animals, the etching of what appeared to be a god or a king on a throne.

“Stunning,” one woman whispered, her hands clasped over her chest as she leaned over to get a closer look at the clay cylinders resting in indigo velvet. An archaeologist reached out to carefully straighten one small tablet in line with the others.

“This is a piece of you,” said Safaa Yaseen, the third secretary for the embassy, who helped unpack the artifacts in the ambassador’s residence. “It’s an indescribable feeling.”

The demand for stolen antiquities “always seems to be there,” said Katharyn Hanson, the executive director of the Academic Research Institute in Iraq. “It’s really nice to have these moments.”

After Mr. Yasseen and Mr. Homan signed the transfer, the flourish of their pens audible, the pair shook hands. Mr. Yasseen offered Mr. Homan a gold-wrapped package — a book, he said later, about the renowned Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid.

“A small token of our appreciation,” he said, pointing to the package.

Mr. Homan threw his hands wide and gestured to the table of artifacts behind him.

“This,” he said, “is a small token of our appreciation.”

https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/civil-rights-groups-sue-trump-administration-over-religious-conscience-rule

Civil rights groups sue Trump administration over religious conscience rule

Civil rights groups sue Trump administration over religious conscience rule Christian leaders praying over Donald Trump in the Oval Office (Photo: Screen capture)

written by Matthew Rozsa / Salon May 29, 2019]

A new rule allows providers to deny care to people whose medical needs raise an objection of religion or conscious.

President Donald Trump’s administration faces a lawsuit over a new rule allowing health care providers to deny care to women, the LGBTQ community and other marginalized groups whose medical needs raise an objection of religion or conscious.

Lambda Legal, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Association of LGBTQ+ Psychiatrists are among the coalition of civil rights groups who are suing Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services over its new rule. In their complaint filed Tuesday, the coalition argued the new Health and Human Services rule violates the basic freedoms of individuals who could face discrimination from religious conservatives.

“Although purporting to implement long-standing healthcare statutes with specific provisions affording protections for the religious or moral beliefs of certain individuals and entities (‘religious objections’), the rule instead creates a wholly new regime that elevates religious objections over all other interests and values,” the complaint says. “The rule invites a much larger universe of healthcare workers to decline to serve patients based on religious objections, defines with unprecedented breadth the types of activities to which they may object and fails to reconcile objections with the needs and rights of patients — even though doing so is critical in any regulatory scheme administering these laws. And the rule does not include emergency exceptions.”

“Earlier this month, HHS issued what we have dubbed ‘the denial of care rule,'” Genevieve Scott, senior staff attorney at Center for Reproductive Rights, said during a conference call with reporters Tuesday.

“It extends not only to doctors and nurses, but even EMTs and administrative staff are encouraged to deny care. The rule is extremely broad and contains no limits on who is at risk of being denied treatment, even for those in need of emergency care,” Scott added. “Health care facilities, including hospitals and clinics, are threatened with a loss of federal funding if they do not comply. Many hospitals and clinics rely on government funding to stay open and could not survive this kind of loss.”

Scott also pointed out that “the rule is intentionally confusing and unworkable for health care facilities to implement. To avoid potentially violating the rule and losing the funding, many facilities may end up doing away with services that staff might object to — including reproductive health services, like abortion and contraception, and LGBT services. Other facilities may be forced to close.”

Lambda Legal, whose mission is to achieve the full civil rights of the LGBT community and individuals living with HIV, expressed similar thoughts.

“Our organizations are jointly representing premiere health care providers and community centers that are dedicated to serving the LGBT community, abortion providers, individual doctors and three national associations of health care professionals and medical students,” Jamie Gliksberg, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal’s Midwest regional office, said during the call. “These health care providers and community centers are really providers of last resort for their patients and of crucial importance to LGBT people, people living with HIV, patients in need of reproductive health care and public health, generally. The people who go to these organizations for care often have been turned away from other health care providers and have no place left to go.”

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https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/hobby-lobby-argument

History of Corporate Personhood

How did we get to the point where a for-profit corporation can lay claim to religious rights? Ciara Torres-Spelliscy on the slithering history of corporate personhood.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy

April 7, 2014

In McCutcheon v. FEC, handed down last Wednesday, the Supreme Court built on the precedent of Citizens United by invalidating the federal aggregate contribution limit for individuals. But McCutcheon is not the only case that gives the Supreme Court chance to expand Citizens United’s reach this term.

In *Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores*, the Supreme Court has to choose whether to extend the logic of 2010’s Citizens Unitedto allow a corporation to make a religious objection to a generally applicable law.

How we got to the point where a for-profit corporation – not a church mind you – can lay claim to religious rights is a bit complicated.  It all goes back to a legal fiction known as corporate personhood.

Generally, corporate personhood allows companies to hold property, enter contracts, and to sue and be sued just like a human being. But of course some human rights make no sense for a corporation, like the right to marry, to parent a child, or to vote. As Professor Elizabeth Pollman explains when it comes to Constitutional rights for corporations there is a hodgepodge: “corporations enjoy Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable regulatory searches, but do not have a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”

If you’re a fan of the Colbert Report, “corporate personhood” might sound familiar. Stephen Colbert got a well deserved Peabody Award for his work educating the public about campaign finance laws with his lawyer Trevor Potter. However, Mr. Colbert’s verbal tick of saying that Citizens United granted corporate personhood is a tad misleading.

Citizens United did not grant corporations personhood. Corporations already had it. As lawyer David Gans has documented, despite the fact that the U.S. Constitution never mentions corporations, corporate personhood has been slithering around American law for a very long time. The first big leap in corporate personhood from mere property rights to more expansive rights was a claim that the Equal Protection Clause applied to corporations.

The 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War in 1868 to grant emancipated slaves full citizenship, states, “No state shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person ... the equal protection of the laws.”

We have the likes of former U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling to thank for the extension of Equal Protection to corporations. Conkling helped draft the 14th Amendment. He then left the Senate to become a lawyer. His Gilded Age law practice was going so swimmingly that Conkling turned down a seat on the Supreme Court not once, but twice.

Conkling argued to the Supreme Court in San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road that the 14th Amendment is not limited to natural persons. In 1882, he produced a journal that seemed to show that the Joint Congressional Committee that drafted the amendment vacillated between using “citizen” and “person” and the drafters chose person specifically to cover corporations. According to historian Howard Jay Graham, “[t]his part of Conkling’s argument was a deliberate, brazen forgery.”

As Thom Hartmann notes the Supreme Court embraced Conkling’s reading of the 14th Amendment in a headnote in 1886 in *Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road*: “Before argument, Mr. Chief Justice Waite said: ‘The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.’” This was not part of the formal opinion. But the damage was done. Later cases uncritically cited the headnote as if it had been part of the case.

Some Supreme Court Justices objected to the Santa Clara approach. Dissenting in *Wheeling Steel Corp.* in 1949 Justice William O. Douglas and Justice Hugo Black noted that the corporate personhood issue was not such an open and shut case: “[In Santa Clara] [t]here was no history, logic, or reason given to support that view. … [T]he purpose of the [14th] Amendment was to protect human rights-primarily the rights of a race which had just won its freedom.” Justices Douglas and Black thought the question of corporate personhood should be decided by the people, not the Supreme Court. But they could not convince their fellow Justices.

In the 1970s, Santa Clara was used to justify granting corporations the First Amendment right to spend unlimited corporate funds on ballot initiatives in a case called *Bellotti*. The Court relied on Santa Clara’s reading when it stated that “[i]t has been settled for almost a century that corporations are persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Justice Rehnquist, in his dissent, questioned the wisdom of extending corporations political rights: “those properties, so beneficial in the economic sphere, pose special dangers in the political sphere.” Again Rehnquist could not convince his brethren.

In *Citizens United*, when the Supreme Court held that political speech is “indispensable to decision making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation,” they cited Bellotti. Thus it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from Santa Clara to Citizens United.

In Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the store chain is claiming that the corporation (and not just its proprietors) has a religious objection to providing certain types of birth control for its workers as required by the Affordable Care Act. Thus, the Court is contemplating expanding corporate personhood to a new logical extreme: First Amendment religious rights. It’s no surprise that Hobby Lobby’s brief relies on Bellotti and Citizens United.

There are absurdities that flow from granting legal fictions Constitutional rights that were intended for humans. Corporations don’t have minds, and without one it is hard to see how a corporation “thinks” about any political issue du jour from gay rights to the budget deficit. Without a soul, it’s hard to conceptualize how a corporation could “believe” in anything whether it is transubstantiation of communion or the morality of birth control. But here we go again. A corporation makes a Constitutional claim to the righteousness of their legal position. The question is will the Justices fall for it?

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gorsuch hobby lobby

https://movetoamend.org/gorsuch%E2%80%99s-gory-expansion-corporate-personhood

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in  several states, Republican lawmakers are sponsoring bills that would allow employers to use “religious liberty” as an excuse to do whatever they want – including discriminate against customers or employees on the basis of religion.

Georgia's version of this religious liberty bill has already passed the state senate, but is running into trouble in the house, where even the speaker, a Republican, has expressed skepticism about the legislation.

Progressive activists in the state are leaving nothing to chance, realizing that if the bill passes, the state could see a new wave of discrimination similar to Jim Crow-style restrictions on African Americans. Some women's organizations are particularly concerned that right-wing employers could, for example, fire women who've had abortions.

On Monday, four women – Megan Harrison, Lorraine Fontana, Emma Stitt, and Jessica Reznicek – sought an audience with the bill's chief Senate sponsor, Republican Josh McKoon. Not only were the four women denied a meeting with McKoon, they were arrested.

The American Friends Service Committee shared a few photos of the arrest

http://www.alternet.org/gender/georgia-women-arrested-protesting-bill-would-let-employers-fire-women-whove-had-abortion

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The conservative majority on the Supreme Court once again expanded its doctrine of corporate personhood with its ruling on Monday in the Hobby Lobby case.

Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, said:

“Protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga, and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies.”

And while the Court limited its decision to tightly held private companies, its argument applies to all corporations.

“No known understanding of the term “person” includes somebut not all corporations. . . . No conceivable definition of the term includes natural persons and nonprofit corporations, but not for-profit corporations.” (Italics in the original.)

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg jumped all over this in her dissent.

“Although the Court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations, its logic extends to corporations of any size, public or private,” she noted.

“There is in the case law no support for the notion that free exercise rights pertain to for-profit corporations,” she wrote. “Until this litigation, no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation’s qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law…. The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial entities.”

:{She added that “the Court’s expansive notion of corporate personhood…invites for-profit entities to seek religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their faith.”

She noted that employers could claim “religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists): medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations (Christian Scientists, among others).”}:

She concluded, pithily: “The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”

She also argued that the majority on the Court minimized the compelling state interest in “public health and women’s well-being.” 

Section: 

Topics: 

:{- Civil Liberties

 - Corporations

 - Health

 - Women's Rights

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- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/06/187760/court-expands-corporate-personhood-hobby-lobby-case#sthash.PnkT54EO.dpuf

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Timothy Michael Tymkovich (born November 2, 1956) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Contents

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Background

Born in Denver, Colorado, Tymkovich received a B.A. from Colorado College in 1979 and his J.D. from the University of Colorado College of Law in 1982. He then clerked for the Hon. William Erickson, Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, from 1982 to 1983.

From 1983 to 1991, Tymkovich worked in private practice in Denver and Washington, D.C. In 1991, Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton appointed him Solicitor General of the State of Colorado. Tymkovich served in that position until 1996, arguing several cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The most notable of these was the Romer v. Evans case, in which he unsuccessfully represented Colorado in its argument that Colorado's Amendment 2 (which revoked local legal protections for members of the LGBT community) was not a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. He then returned to private practice in Denver.

Tenth Circuit nomination and confirmation

President George W. Bush nominated Tymkovich to the seat on the Tenth Circuit on January 7, 2003. President Bill Clinton previously had nominated Christine Arguellofor the seat, but she never received a hearing or a vote from the U.S. Senate. Tymkovich was confirmed swiftly by the United States Senate in a 58-41 vote less than two months later on April 1, 2003, and he received his commission the same day. Tymkovich replaced Judge John Carbone Porfilio, who took senior status.

Notable Cases

Lewis v. Burger King, No. 09-2160 (10th Cir. 2009) -- In an unpublished opinion written by Judge Tymkovich, the Tenth Circuit held that animals lack standing to sue.

United States v. McCane, 573 F.3d 1037 (10th Cir. 2009) -- Markice McCane was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). On appeal, he contended that the felon-in-possession statute was unconstitutional in light of District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008). But the Tenth Circuit affirmed the conviction after noting the statement in Heller that "nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons." 128 S.Ct. at 2816-17. In a concurring opinion, Judge Tymkovich expressed concern that the statement “short-circuits at least some of the analysis and refinement that would otherwise take place in the lower courts,” particularly since the statement was based on a possibly questionable premise—that the felony-in-possession prohibition was longstanding.

Guttman v. Khalsa, No. 10-2167 (10th Cir. 2012) -- Dr. Stuart Guttman brought suit under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 after the New Mexico Board of Medical Examiners revoked his medical license. In an opinion written by Judge Tymkovich, the Tenth Circuit held that the Eleventh Amendment protected States from lawsuits based on professional licensing decisions.

United States v. Strandlof, No. 13-1358 (10th Cir. 2012) -- Rick Glen Strandlof was convicted of violating the Stolen Valor Act, 18 U.S.C. § 704(b), which makes it illegal to falsely claim to have received a military award or honor. In an opinion written by Judge Tymkovich, the Tenth Circuit held that the First Amendment does not protect knowingly false statements of fact. In United States v. Alvarez (2012), the Supreme Court held that the Act was unconstitutional, although a majority of justices held that lies about easily verifiable facts (e.g., receiving military honors) are outside the core of First Amendment protection.[1]

Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius, No. 12-6294 (10th Cir. 2013) -- For-profit corporations Hobby Lobby and Mardel Christian Bookstores could assert religious freedom as "persons" under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.<http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/12/12-6294.pdf>

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