New EO - Are you F*!*4 kidding me?

This gem came out within the last few days....

Sec. 2. Respecting Religious and Political Speech. All executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall, to the greatest extent practicable and to the extent permitted by law, respect and protect the freedom of persons and organizations to engage in religious and political speech. In particular, the Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure, to the extent permitted by law, that the Department of the Treasury does not take any adverse action against any individual, house of worship, or other religious organization on the basis that such individual or organization speaks or has spoken about moral or political issues from a religious perspective, where speech of similar character has, consistent with law, not ordinarily been treated as participation or intervention in a political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) a candidate for public office by the Department of the Treasury. As used in this section, the term "adverse action" means the imposition of any tax or tax penalty; the delay or denial of tax-exempt status; the disallowance of tax deductions for contributions made to entities exempted from taxation under section 501(c)(3) of title 26, United States Code; or any other action that makes unavailable or denies any tax deduction, exemption, credit, or benefit.

Meaning that religious institutions, such as the LDS cult I grew up in, seem free to participate in politics.

How is this progress?!!?

Separation of church and state should, in my opinion, also mean separation of church and politics.

Religions and non-profits have no place in politics. Politics is about greedy, pompous, rich men screwing over the average person - Religions and charities and the like should at least pretend they are not a part of this game.

Sigh.

What do you people think?

Progress? Anti-progress?

a reply to: deadlyhope

I agree with you 100%. I don't think politicians should be allowed to receive support from religious organizations. Furthermore, I just don't understand why religious organizations are even allowed to have tax exempt status. Churches always teach to render unto Cesar, so why should a church be exempt. They should be held accountable to their own doctrine.

a reply to: deadlyhope

I agree. I say we should also tax them just like a standard corporation. When you are in the business to make money, you should be taxed like everyone else.

a reply to: deadlyhope

Are you surprised?

An EO to create a loop hole for special snowflake religious groups, and allowing already existing dominant ones to flourish.

Heartbreaking to see stuff like this happen. I can still remember reading about the patriot act before it was put in place.

a reply to: deadlyhope

Separation of church and state should, in my opinion, also mean separation of church and politics.

Those mean the exact same thing to me... no difference.

I agree... religion is divide and religion is in politics... clearly.

Since I only vote for change and don't actively participate in all the nonsense that goes on daily, I've simply grown comfortable with the fact that I am a lawless pirate. It's too far gone... legislate whatever ways the red/blue wants is the way I see it... the 2 party's have shown time and time again to promote dead ends. I'm in favor of expanding party's in the U.S. system.

Anti-progress... almost any and all measures of legislation that promote divide are anti-progress. I could care less if more are added... I am numb to them already and already live a lawless life. It's insane to promote a system that gives business' and charitable organizations a vote of influence that is equal to or greater value than the vote of a human citizen.

a reply to: strongfp

Slightly surprised I suppose - Where is this coming from ? I never saw Trump as a very religious guy - But I guess having a Republican house, senate, etc, you might want to make friends???

Disappointed for sure, though.

Religion/Whatever need to stay the hell away from being able to sway legislation/legislators into changing things according to their morals - Let's not forget that $$$ is a part of "free speech" these days.

I believe that Churches as well as Universities and Corporations should stay out of politics. However with that said, its not possible to "separate" any of those entities from our political structure. I would rather a church or any of the others mentioned above be active participants as who and what they are rather than hiding behind a Super Pac with a name only disguising who they are and their intentions behind the support they provide.

We need to overhaul the whole systems and clean it up, and plain get rid of the stupid amounts of money wasted on campaigns in general. Too many lobbyist from every angle imaginable tend to muddy the waters and create at the least the appearance of Quid Pro Quo. If an organization wants to be a non profit tax exempt organization whether it be a church or university then they should be just that non profit, therefore they should not have money to burn on supporting any candidates much less a specific one.

Free speech is an important aspect of our country and needs protection as well and the support of an idea or a particular platform should not result in an investigation or tax penalty as a result as it can be an abused power which some if not all administrations have been accused of doing in the past. I hate the idea of lobbyist anyway as it is a disguise for bribery and too many unheard voices are left behind because of the money involved.

Perhaps the EO issued is a way of evening the playing field for all involved to include Churches and like organizations against Corporations, Universities and even individuals who have louder voices because they have deeper pockets and in certain cases they are tax exempt yet still able to throw their weight behind the guy or gal they want. I don't have the answers other than to just dissolve the Super Pacs and Lobbyist and have candidates run on platforms and issues instead of Quid Pro Quo.

all corporate money should be banned from politics. And yes religion is corporate money. Separation of Church and state is a joke. The church owns the world, of course they don't have to pay taxes.

a reply to: deadlyhope

Trump grew up in a time when 'America first' was a well known slogan.
He continuously glorified the depression - 80's. And throughout that time religion did play a huge role in voting, politics, without people even knowing it.
I hate to say it, but 'white America' was / is mainly christian, and since the 70's it has been separated more than ever from politics.
It's been ingrained into his life, and the people he appointed into his administration are very religious.

a reply to: deadlyhope

Mixing religious ideology with political ideology sure has worked out well for the Middle East.

a reply to: deadlyhope
They have free speech rights as much as anyone or any corporation. Everybody or nobody, lets remember that mantra.

a reply to: deadlyhope

Does it really surprise you?

The church has been used as a tool of big business/politics since WWII.

I'll write more on the subject later I have to run now.

Great topic!!!

a reply to: worldstarcountry

Let's not forget that "free speech" means $$ these days.

So you actually think a religion has the right to raise money via things like tithing - and use that tithing to influence our political process?

Sorry, I cannot agree with this version of "Free speech for everyone"

Corporations and religions are NOT people.

I realize modern politicians have confused such terms, but they are not individuals, and individual liberties should not apply.

a reply to: deadlyhope

You should also take note of another aspect of this. Remember all of the right wing's conspiracies about "creeping Sharia", Huma & the Muslim Brotherhood, and Obama being a "closet Muslim"? Yet surprise surprise, look who actually signs the executive order to allow more religion in politics. If the narratives were true, ex-Pres Obama would've been the one signing this. But nope, it's not even the left wing or American Muslims who wanted this.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

The problem to me is that everyone thinks it applies to them.

I'm sure plenty of conservatives are saying " Yay, my _____ christian religion now has more freedom "

Not realizing that this "freedom" applies to all, even those against them.

This law is chaotic, though. I don't want more Christian nor Muslim nor any other religions principles in our politics - Not to mention along with these speeches/pitches - The ability to donate to a politician and not call it bribery, but free speech.

I find it painfully ironic that just a couple of weeks ago Canada had placed a similar action, specifically for Islam, and there were tons of responses saying "those Canadians are such idiots" "this is why I live in the US" so on and so forth.

Can we just step off eachothers necks for a second and just try to change how our moronic politicians act and preemptively make decisions like this, bills that would forever dramatically change our respective countries for the worse, with no thought from the general public?

Hell, we have people in this very topic that are religious that strongly disagree with this.

It's evident that someone in the political circle is trying to push an agenda within their specific religion, because it makes no sense otherwise.

a reply to: Ghost147

Well the high likelihood that religion being too manifested within government to begin with feeds multifaceted problems beyond just the divide that religions promote in general. What happens when a particular religion is statistically found to have inbred genes negatively affecting the influence of governmental societies? Well, take a look at this link?



So, here lays an odd twist of fate. A fate where, the divide of religions set the borders and grounds for debates to even occur to begin with. Yet, let it go further into the development of the set grounds (after divide between religions split) is a stall to human progress as a whole.

Maybe Canada took to these stats and is being labeled as dividers of humans?

I think it's best if I stay out of participating in it all, and worry about myself, family, and property boundaries. These dividers are the same people that drink coffee every morning while calling for cannabis users to be locked up. Why would I entertain the logic of these dividers and concepts? I might be forced to live around it, but it does not obligate me to follow the absurd laws and legislation that stem from it.

a reply to: Ghost147

One question I'm not sure anyone can answer... What does this do to the Johnson amendment?

Does it just cause confusion, in the case that a religious institution is brought to court?

One side brings up the Johnson amend, one side brings up this executive order...?

It does have language directly talking about political campaigns and candidates, but what about those already in office?

It also mentions that if a secular group would not be punished for similar speech, a religious group would not be as well...

So what the hell is this executive order for?

Muddy waters we're traveling in.

a reply to: deadlyhope

Wait till the Satanic temple starts their political machine.

fun times.

originally posted by: ClovenSky
a reply to: deadlyhope

I agree. I say we should also tax them just like a standard corporation. When you are in the business to make money, you should be taxed like everyone else.

I think we can all agree upon that, i've seen their work first hand.

Yes there is rates, leases etc to consider but then they rely on food donations to feed to needy while they build multi million dollar churches, have the money to fund TV ads and televangelists and then plead for funds in TV preaches so there has to be an income, expenditures-therefore religious sects should be considered a business because they make money.

They get furniture for free and sell it, they hire volunteers like myself for free while they go out for lunch while the volunteers have to throw out books that don't agree with their religion-I've had to depose of science magazines, Stephen King books, Harry Potter etc.

I'd include a clause where if these folk can't prove evidence of their god then they must pay taxes, that would make them sweat bullets.