FROM THE LEFT
The wall Trump needs to respect
Donald Trump is not a Christian. Never in his personal, professional and certainly not as president of the United States of America, has he practiced or shown any real evidence of being a Christian. For fundamentalist evangelical Christians who are now equating their worship of Trump as divinely inspired, perhaps they should reread the First Commandment: ‘Thou shall have no other gods before me.’
Thomas Jefferson used the metaphor of the ‘wall of separation between church and state“ to explain the principle enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ This is the wall Trump and fundamentalist evangelicals want to tear down in order to establish Christian nationalism.
To this end, we have Secretary of State Pompeo, who promised to fight marriage equality ‘until the Rapture.’ He posted a speech titled ‘Being a Christian’ on the State Department website. Attorney General William Barr declared the purpose of law was to enforce a very narrow set of religious beliefs while speaking at the University of Notre Dame law school.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has expanded the school voucher program, laundering tax dollars owed Florida from businesses, while allowing religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQ students and teachers and diverting billions of dollars from our public schools.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993) that was passed as a shield to protect religious minorities is now being used as a sword to discriminate against LGBTQ community and any religion other than fundamentalist evangelical Christianity.
Trump issued a waiver in January to South Carolina’s largest foster care provider, Miracle Hill Ministries, evangelical Protestants, sidestepping federal discrimination regulations while receiving federal funding. Miracle Hill refuses Catholics, Jews, people of other religions or nonreligious beliefs, as foster parents.
Trump’s discrimination against the LGBTQ community extended to thousands in our military when he tweeted that transgender individuals would no longer be allowed in our military, with the false excuse of medical expenses. Former U.S. Navy Secretary Raymond Mabus Jr. stated, ‘I cannot recall another instance of United States military history of such a stark and unfounded reversal of policy.“ Trump extended his religious discrimination giving federal contractors the right to discriminate against people who don’t share their employers’ religious views. Especially targeting LGBTQ, allowing the Catholic Church to fire anyone favoring same sex marriage, birth control or pregnant women who are not married. Allowing employers to exclude women from being hired, according to their religious beliefs.
Trump’s White House spiritual adviser is Paula White. She has much in common with Trump: twice divorced, filed bankruptcy and investigated for illegal spending of donations. White preaches the prosperity gospel, giving your money to the church and God will protect your bank account. This should be known as the gospel of greed which certainly fits Trump’s motivations.
A goal of the Trump administration and religious fundamentalists is ending a women’s right to have an abortion and labeling contraception as abortion. Trump has allowed employers to use the Religious Freedom Act to avoid birth control requirements under the Affordable Care Act. Studies have shown limiting unwanted pregnancy and abortions can be achieved by keeping the birth control provisions of the ACA and comprehensive sex education, rather than making abortion illegal and putting women in prison.
A national legislative plan by evangelicals to use our public schools to establish a Christian nation — titled ‘Project Blitz.‘ Thanks to legislation presented by Democratic Rep. Kimberly Daniels, self-proclaimed ‘demon buster’ and Trump supporter, all Florida public schools must post ‘In God We Trust’. If Daniels’ legislation had passed this year, Florida public middle schools would be teaching Christian bible studies.
Fundamentalist evangelical’s have abdicated any pretext of moral values to join in an unholy alliance with irreligious Trump, in order to establish a government theocracy. We the people, must maintain the wall of separation our founding fathers established in the First Amendment of our Constitution to keep this from happening.
KATHY WEAVER
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