Religious Liberty Task Force

Earlier this week, Jeff Sessions, the United States Attorney General and mutated opossum in humanoid form, poked his head out of his burrow, skirted nervously into the light to announce something called the Religious Liberty Task Force.

 

What, you may wonder, fresh hell is this?

 

The Religious Liberty Task Force is designed to address problems where people may find themselves oppressed or harmed as a result of their religious beliefs. 

 

Ostensibly, people in the United States have the right to worship as they choose and should not be hurt, discriminated against or oppressed because of those beliefs. So why not have a Religious Liberty Task Force to protect those rights and defend those whose rights are infringed upon?

 

The question is… whose rights?

 

Let’s be blunt: this whole Religious Liberty Task Force is a play to the evangelical “Christians” in Trump’s core base of support.  These so called Christians can be the whiniest cry babies on the planet.

 

Starbucks puts snow flakes instead of a manger scene on their Christmas cups? Oh no! Christians are being oppressed! 

 

A store clerk says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”? Oh no! Christians are being oppressed! 

 

Two gay men want to buy a cake from a Christian baker? Oh no! Christians are being oppressed! 

 

That Muslim woman is wearing a hijab in public? Oh no! Christians are being oppressed! 

 

Insurance should provide coverage for birth control? Oh no! Christians are being oppressed! 

 

A pharmacist is asked to fill a prescription for a transgender person’s medication? Oh no! Christians are being oppressed! 

 

The thing is that any slight to the sensibilities of these so-called Christians is considered an attack on their faith.  

 

There are Christians in this world who are forcefully and painfully oppressed. In my church, we have several members who are refugees from southeast Asia where Christians are arrested, tortured and killed. They have overcome terrible hardships to make their way to America where they have the freedom to worship has they choose and, if they choose, bitch about the lack of a cross on the Starbucks cups at Christmas.

 

Except they would never do that. These are good people who have seriously taken the lessons of Jesus Christ to heart and are so grateful to not have bamboo shoots shoved up their fingernails because of those beliefs to complain why there’s not a manger scene on the court house lawn.   

 

But this kind of torment and oppression is not why the Religious Liberty Task Force was created. It is not about protecting the religious liberty of everyone.

 

It provides a forum with an illusion of legitimacy to bolster the efforts of alleged Christians to push back on those people who are not like them. Given the background of Jeff Sessions and the demographic of Trump’s base of support, I have little faith that the Religious Liberty Task Force has much If any interest in the religious liberty of anyone other the Christians who are feeling so put upon because someone across the street may not believe as they do. 

 

The first test of this sham will be the next time a woman in hijab is harassed on a subway and the Religious Liberty Task Force can’t be bothered to answer the phone.

 

Although I suspect the Religious Liberty Task Force will take on a couple of token “other than Christian” cases to give them cover while they’re busy protecting a hundred other “victims” from the “gay agenda”.