Penna Dexter

During the recent campaign season, we heard a lot about how evangelicals are losing influence in politics. That will be true only if Christians fail to take advantage of what happened in the recent elections in which 81 percent of self-described evangelical voters pulled the lever for Donald Trump. Americans concerned about the growing number of government attacks on religious liberty applaud this result. But we mustn’t be complacent. Now, the real work begins. First, we’ve got to make it known that it’s freedom of religion we seek to protect. Every politician says they’re all in for freedom of worship, which allows full religious expression inside the four walls of a church. But, the contraceptive and abortifacient mandate under the Affordable Care Act contained no exceptions for other types of religious employers and religious non-profits doing God’s work out in the culture. Hobby Lobby won an exemption for Christian-owned businesses at the Supreme Court. But Christian charities, schools, and ministries that are not specifically churches have not attained such protections. The Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson says the new presidential administration can “fix this right away.” In fact, Ryan Anderson says that once Donald Trump takes office, he can “Make Religious Freedom Great Again.” That’s the title of Dr. Anderson’s article in Heritage’s Daily Signal. In it he says, once inaugurated, the president can immediately “instruct his secretary of Health and Human Services to provide robust religious liberty protections to the HHS mandate.” He can do this without a congressional vote because ObamaCare gave HHS discretion to write the rules implementing the law. And then, Congress can go ahead and repeal the entire Affordable Care Act with all its freedom-grabbing tentacles. The president can quickly nominate judicial nominees with track records of strict adherence to the constitution. Timely confirmation will advance the cause of religious liberty. The mandates requiring that bathrooms and locker rooms be open to people according to gender identity can also be easily fixed. Since it’s the Administration, specifically the Department of Education and the Justice Department, that redefined the word sex to mean the gender you identify with, the new Administration can simply return the term to its original meaning. This action would help settle controversies regarding restrictions on military contractors who lack the “correct” gender policies and would prevent doctors from being forced to provide sex reassignment therapies. Donald Trump addressed social engineering in the military at a forum hosted by the Family Research Council. Mr. Trump said the questions he’d want answered about any policy are ‘does it help us fight and win wars?’ and ‘does it make us a stronger military?’ The Administration must re-evaluate what is being forced upon our fighting forces.

 Reversing policies that hamper religious liberty is a good first step. Then, Congress should pass legislation — some of which has already been written — to help ensure a future Administration does not undo this good work.