The Trump Administration is removing nondiscrimination provisions that would allow religious providers to discriminate against LGBT persons, Muslims, Jews, or even Catholics in the provision of taxpayer funded public services.
American religious liberty protects the right of religious ministries to serve who they want when it is privately funded, but also protects people of different faiths from being discriminated against in a public benefit program and from having to pay for discriminatory services as taxpayers. Our government treating every individual’s religious choices equally before the law is the essence of America’s traditional religious liberty.
When our government pays a contractor for a service, and that contractor is a religious ministry, the government must protect the intended beneficiary of those services from religious discrimination. If government allows a contractor to discriminate against other faiths or those of no faith, then government is favoring the contractor’s faith over the faith of the individuals the government program is meant to serve.
Government levies public dollars from taxpayers of all faiths and no faith. If the religious ministry cannot put aside its theological preferences in order to perform a government service, then it should not apply to be a contractor of those government services. Instead, they should provide their ministry solely with private funds.
Texas Impact’s national partner, the Interfaith Coalition for Children’s Rights, has made it easy for you to file comments opposing this rule change in the Federal Register. Please add your own words to the template explaining why you oppose this rule before December 19, 2019.