Friday morning, the Trump administration finalized its rollback of civil rights healthcare protections for transgender Americans and women. These protections were expanded by the Obama administration, by not allowing the faux bigoted “religious exemption” rules to apply to health care. While not surprising, it’s depressing for millions of people across the country that this kind of anti-public health policy will affect them. But the Trump administration is not done. A senior administration official reportedly told Axios that Trump will also rollback protections for same-sex couples seeking adoption from (frequently) Christian and Catholic-based agencies.
These are agencies that receive federal funding and protections, who want to argue that their religion would make it impossible for them NOT to discriminate against same sex couples trying to adopt. According to Axios, this is going to happen but the Trump administration is mulling over what the best way will be to screw over LGBTQ prospective parents.
- Administration officials said the White House is weighing two options: either rescinding those rules altogether, or adding an explicit exemption for religious organizations.
- The debate is mainly about which approach would hold up better in court, the officials said. A religious exemption seems to have the upper hand for now, but that could change.
This is all a part of a larger movement by conservative forces to allow for lawful discrimination of non-Christians, or more specifically, a brand of “Christianity,” that believes in wholesale denouncement of the LGBTQ communities, as well as women’s reproductive rights. The Trump administration also plans to apply this “religious exemption,” hooey to similar Obama-era protections for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It’s all “love thy neighbor,” and “life is sacred,” until that neighbor or that life doesn’t follow the strict social etiquettes you follow, and then … all that “love” and “sacred” talk goes out the window.
You know what kids want out of their parents? Love. They need food and shelter, but mostly they need and want love.
