Trump administration opens new HHS 'civil rights' division to enable religious-based discrimination

Kerry Eleveld

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday January 18, 2018 · 9:30 AM PST

2018/01/18 · 09:30

US President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order on health insurance on October 12, 2017 in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

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Donald Trump came to Washington to drain the swamp and starve government of its excesses—except for when government can be used as a sword to help people with religious, or even moral, objections discriminate against things and people and situations they don't like. The Hill writes:

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Thursday it will create a new division under the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) responsible for investigating complaints filed by workers claiming that their employers have violated their religious rights. [...]

"No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one’s deepest moral or religious convictions, and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice," OCR Director Roger Severino said at the announcement ceremony Thursday morning.

"We are saying, with the launch of this division, you do not need to shed your religious identity, you do not need to shed your moral convictions to be a part of the public square."

Hear that—religious or moral. Basically, you can just decide in any given moment that you don't like something or someone and the Trump administration is serving up a new apparatus—the “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division”—that's dedicated to protecting your particular bias. Naturally, that bias will be mainly targeted at women and transgender individuals in the course of seeking health care.

If you're wondering if there might be room for a sensitive and nuanced conversation around these issues, rest assured that no such effort led by the Trump administration is even remotely capable of facilitating such a conversation. That’s clearly not the goal.

Happening right now: HHS in press conference comparing victims of the Holocaust and journey of Dr. King to the "oppression" of healthcare workers who are forced to treat transgender patients, against their religious freedom. No, really.
— Charlotte ClymerÃ°ÂÂÂ³Ã¯Â¸ÂÃ¢ÂÂÃ°ÂÂÂ (@cmclymer) January 18, 2018

“I am deeply troubled by reports of the unconscionable approach being considered by President Trump’s Administration to use the civil rights office at the Department of Health and Human Services as a tool to restrict access to health care for people who are transgender and women," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Health Committee, said in a statement.

The new division was unveiled one day before anti-abortion activists will descend on Washington for the March for Life. Paragon of morality Donald Trump is expected to address marchers via satellite and tout the new bone his administration is throwing to them.

Trump administration opens new HHS 'civil rights' division to enable religious-based discrimination

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