“On the Holmes Front,” with Frank Holmes
What a difference one election makes.
For four years, President Donald Trump went all-out to protect religious freedom. Now on Thanksgiving weekend, Joe Biden is going all-out to trample on it.
“Never has religious liberty been more seriously threatened than it is today. That the man responsible for this all-out assault professes to be a Catholic is all the more offensive,” said the president of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue.
What’s got Donohue up in arms? Biden wants to burn down the First Amendment and standing law that protects people from being forced to do things their religion says is a sin.
Biden’s basically saying, “It’s my way or the highway to Hell.”
Democrats want to force believers to pay for abortion, hire transgender “women” to work as their secretary, etc. Luckily, two things protect believers from a radically secular government: the First Amendment and a law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (R.F.R.A.)
The R.F.R.A. is so uncontroversial that it was proposed by Rep. Chuck Schumer and signed by President Bill Clinton—who wasn’t exactly an altar boy!
Now, before the government can force people to do anything, they have the right to sue and protect themselves.
President Donald Trump did one better during his time in office. Trump saw that many of these cases weren’t being prosecuted, and believers’ rights were being denied. So, he decided one department of the federal government would handle everything: the Office of Civil Rights (O.C.R.) within U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (H.H.S.)
Trump changed the department in late 2017… but now, the Biden administration wants things to go back to the bad old days.
H.H.S. Secretary Xavier Becerra—who prosecuted an order of nuns called the Little Sisters of the Poor when he was attorney general of California—wants to reverse Trump’s move, and his underlings have just produced a memo to do just that.
“Prior to the delegation in 2017, no division was singularly responsible for the Department’s compliance with R.F.R.A. or the First Amendment,” says the memo, which was released to Fox News.
The new memo claims it was better when nobody was in charge.
The Obama administration’s lax, leaky model for ignoring religious freedom cases “recognized that all components of HHS had a responsibility for compliance and that OGC (the Office of General Counsel) was a central partner in providing key legal advice on RFRA and defending the Department when RFRA claims were raised.”
So, the Biden administration argues, it won’t hurt anything to totally revoke the office’s responsibility. “Rescinding the delegation to O.C.R. does not lessen the commitment of the Department to compliance, but ensures that it is not misused by any one agency to enact a broad, proactive agenda,” the memo claims.
The Biden appointees and Obama retreads may claim this won’t hurt religious liberty, but people in the know say that’s just gaslighting.
“H.H.S. centralized authority over religious freedom claims” in the O.C.R. “because the laws weren’t being enforced,” said Roger Severino, the man Donald Trump tapped to lead O.C.R..
It only makes sense to have one agency in charge of all complaints. “That’s how we enforce every other civil right,” Severino said.
“Without dedicated staff responsible for investigating religious freedom complaints, H.H.S. will return to trampling people’s rights as before, Severino clarified in a message to Fox News. “Just ask the Little Sisters of the Poor.”
Joe Biden just “wants to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions,” Donohue said. “Not to be outdone, Biden wants to deny Catholic hospitals the right not to hire abortionists, doctors who perform abortions.”
It’s a lie and a ploy to blow up any law that gets in the way of the radical Left forcing its will on average Americans.
Biden thinks he can get away with it—right at Thanksgiving, to boot.
Let’s give thanks that Joe Biden is a doddering old man who’s not really in charge of his own presidency… and that he’s almost certain to be turned out of office in three years.
Until then, give thanks for the rest of God’s blessings, and hold on tight.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”