Jeff Sessions creates 'religious liberty task force' to protect bigots

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Jeff Sessions creates ‘religious liberty task force’ to protect bigots
By Kaili Joy Gray -
July 30, 2018



Jeff Sessions says it's about protecting religious liberty, but it's really about protecting discrimination.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a cynical new way for the Justice Department to further Trump’s extremist agenda, with the creation of a “religious liberty task force.”

But for an administration that introduced a ban on Muslims in its first week and has praised Nazis as “very fine people,” anyone who thinks this task force will actually stand up for the First Amendment rights of all Americans might want to rethink that.

Sessions started his remarks at the Justice Department Monday by warning that “a dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom.”

One example of this supposedly dangerous “movement” threatening America?

The lawsuit against Jack Phillips, who was a guest at Sessions’ announcement of the task force.

“We’ve all seen the ordeal faced so bravely by Jack Phillips,” Sessions said. Phillips is the Colorado baker who fought all the way to the Supreme Court for the “right” to discriminate against gay people by refusing to bake wedding cakes for them.

This, according to Sessions, is the kind of “religious freedom” under attack that his Justice Department is now devoting an entire task force to protecting.

Another supposed example of those under attack who need the special attention of the Justice Department?

The Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns who also fought all the way to the Supreme Court to be exempted from providing health insurance that complied with federal law.

“We’ve seen nuns ordered to buy contraceptives,” Sessions said in his remarks — a shameless, bald-faced lie. The nuns were never ordered to do any such thing. They wanted to opt of providing health care that covered contraception, but they refused to complete the simple form that would allow them to do so.........................