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This is unbelievably bad. I can't stress that enough. It's... just unbelievably bad, if you give fuck number one about equal protection under the law.
These aren't just about carving out massive exemptions to civil rights law for fundamentalist groups. Everybody expected that. It's not just about bashing the queers, though that's certainly part of it, through the protections it carves out and special protections and supremacy it grants to "faith based" horseshit.
But no. It's so much more. It's about Christianist supremacy, it's about looting, and in a big surprise, about creating safe-spaces for racists, misogynists, creationists, and actual, literal Nazis in schools, while making sure nobody else can escape them. The Department of Education document is four times the length of the others, and both the worst and most important. The others all show Pence's hand; that one shows what happens when someone like Pence has someone like DeVos to work with.
It relies a lot on Hobby Lobby to expand its reach, treating fundamentalist-owned for-profit corporations as "faith-based," with all that implies.
It's a blueprint for hell.
First the tweet that tipped me off about this. Second is my high-level first read and reactions. They're all bad, but the Department of Education version is by far the worst.
And please remember that I am not a lawyer.
Jessica Mason Pieklo
Rewire News
twitter.com/Hegemommy
https://twitter.com/Hegemommy/status/1217817678548631552
Welp the administration just released its faith-based regulations if you want to know what I'll be doing for most of today.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-26862/equal-participation-of-faith-based-organizations-in-the-department-of-labors-programs-and-activities
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-26923/ensuring-equal-treatment-of-faith-based-organizations
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-26937/uniform-administrative-requirements-cost-principles-and-audit-requirements-for-federal-awards-direct
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-27164/equal-participation-of-faith-based-organizations-in-usaids-programs-and-activities-implementation-of
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-27777/equal-participation-of-faith-based-organizations-in-department-of-justices-programs-and-activities
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-28142/equal-participation-of-faith-based-organizations-in-dhss-programs-and-activities
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-28541/equal-opportunity-for-religious-organizations-in-us-department-of-agriculture-programs
Before we get into this, I must state: I am not a lawyer. I'm not reading this from the standpoint of a lawyer. I have some layperson familiarity - more than most, frankly, but that's another story - but that's it.
I am reading this from an experienced political standpoint. I'm reading with implicit context and history, and political intent. I have many years of fighting these fuckers - literally my entire life - so I know what they want, and how they want it, and what their language means internally. That is the source of my read, here. If I make what seems to be a leap, it's because something is obvious to me that is not obvious to someone who hasn't been fighting for her right to exist her entire life, directly against these fuckers. Ask me about it in comments, and I can explain.
There's a lot to read here, so I'm trying to hit the highlights. A lot of these are similar but presented individually for each of the various departments affected. In general:
* Removes "religious," replacing it with "faith-based," the preferred term of the fundamentalist right.
* Makes clear that all funding refers to both direct and indirect funding, e.g. use of vouchers by those receiving services.
* Removes requirement for "faith-based" groups receiving taxpayer funds directly _or indirectly_ (via vouchers, et al) to refer those they refuse to serve to other organisations that can and/or will serve them.
* Removes requirement that "faith-based" groups notify beneficiaries that participation in the group's religious activities is voluntary. (Removes requirement to "provide written notice to beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries of various rights, including nondiscrimination based on religion, the requirement that participation in any religious activities must be voluntary and that they must be provided separately from the Federally funded activities, and that beneficiaries may report violations.")
However, such participation cannot be explicitly _required_, and cannot be at the same _time and place_ as the taxpayer-funded social service in question. Also, you can't discriminate based on _belief_ of the taxpayer-funded beneficiary - but that's different to discriminating based on practice of course.
A little clarification is necessary here: religious _practice_ can be things like "Don't be gay," and particularly can be, "Don't be married to a person of your own gender." It can be "don't be a woman speaking in public" or "don't use birth control, much less get an abortion," or "don't be a woman with a job." So keep that in mind.
"An organization, whether faith-based or not, that receives Federal financial assistance shall not, with respect to services or activities funded by such financial assistance, discriminate against a program beneficiary or prospective program beneficiary on the basis of religion, a religious belief, a refusal to hold a religious belief, or a refusal to attend or participate in a religious practice. However, a faith-based organization receiving indirect Federal financial assistance need not modify any religious components or integration with respect to its program activities to accommodate a beneficiary who chooses to expend the indirect aid on the organization’s program and may require attendance at all activities that are fundamental to the program."
* Requires religious groups to be treated equally to secular groups regardless of their religious practices carte blanche - which means, for example, that fundamentalist groups hating queers and women get considered for taxpayer money equally to groups that don't.
* Declares that any "faith-based" organisation receiving taxpayer funding basically cannot be regulated at any level if they declare an area to be part of their "faith." Each group "shall retain its autonomy; right of expression; religious character; and independence from federal, state, and local governments."
This means _no_ level of government can address taxpayer-funded religious discrimination by these groups. They specifically call out hiring practices as an example, saying that "faith-based" organisations _can_ discriminate based on religiously-compatible "practice" and "adherence to religious tenants." This mostly will come down to "no queers and no women," but I feel safe in asserting that there will be efforts to expand this along other white supremacist lines, as this has already happened without these new regulations.
* Explicitly states that a lack of history of any specific faith and belief tenants cannot affect any of the above. “[n]either the HHS awarding agency nor any State or local government or other pass-through entity receiving funds under any HHS awarding agency program or service shall construe these provisions in such a way as to advantage or disadvantage faith-based organizations affiliated with historic or well-established religions or sects in comparison with other religions or sects."
This means you can start a new sect at any time with whatever religious requirements you want to require and get taxpayer funding. White Protestants Only, ahoy.
* Expands the list of "faith-based" to include corporations owned by fundamentalists; explicitly calls out the Hobby Lobby case. I was surprised to see it in the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Agriculture's versions (as well as others - Education, Justice), until I realised it's so they can use taxpayer money to hire contractors (and social service providers) that discriminate based on the "faith-based" beliefs of their management. Basically, it's for diverting funding to the fundamentalist scam-artists of the world.
* They _all_ say that you can't put _any_ additional regulatory requirements on "faith-based" groups, generically - this is a big kick in the teeth against oversight, more or less.
***** DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SPECIAL SECTION *****
All of the above applies, but the Education Department is where things get _really_ spicy. It has its own second agenda, "Part 2– Free Inquiry." This is entirely about protecting creationists, racists, misogynists, and anti-queer activists - and that's just the start.
***** 1. Big expansions in what a "religious organisation" means, expanding it to organisations "controlled by" by religious organisations. This expands all the exceptions to civil rights law and equal-protection law to such organisations. Explicitly references Hobby Lobby - a craft store corporation owned by fundamentalists - as an _example_ faith-based organisation. "Requiring faith-based organizations to comply with the alternative provider requirement could impose such a burden, such as in a case in which a faith-based organization has a religious objection to referring the beneficiary to an alternative provider that provided services in a manner that violated the organization’s religious tenets. See Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682, 720-26 (2014)."
***** 2. LONG rant - pages and pages of it - about how "free speech" is being "stifled" at universities. This gets to Part 2.
***** 3. Grants implicit non-profit status to groups that do not/will not apply for non-profit status due to a "sincerely-held religious belief" what the _fuck_ scam is this? ("The proposed regulations clarify that if the applicant would qualify under the existing methods of demonstrating nonprofit status but cannot register with a government agency such as the Internal Revenue Service because of a sincerely-held religious belief, the entity may still qualify as a nonprofit organization as long as the entity otherwise qualifies as a nonprofit organization under §75.51(b)(1) through (b)(4).")
This also appears in a few other departments, and I came to the conclusion that a lot of it is about hiring discriminatory social service providers and discriminatory corporations, ala Hobby Lobby.
***** 4. There's a lot about severability, and it's repeated constantly, meaning each part of this mess has to be struck down individually, as far as the regulation is concerned. They're expecting to lose some court cases here.
***** 5. Broadly exempts theology schools from falling under religious practice and/or acts of worship, making them much more eligible for various kinds of direct taxpayer funding. It's not universal - preparing people specifically to be ministers, for example, isn't exempted. Lots of resting here on "the study of theology does not necessarily implicate religious devotion or faith."
***** 6. HOLY SHIT PART TWO IS FOR NAZIS. Not just them, but literally the first thing DoE go to is the politics of nationalism. Funding bans focus on the grant level, but defending up to the entire institution is in play.
"The First Amendment applies to public institutions, and under the First Amendment, 'no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in **politics**, **nationalism**, **religion**, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.' As a result, officials at public institutions may not discriminate against their students’ [sic] or employees’ [sic] on the basis of their religious, political, philosophical, or ideological affinities, convictions, thoughts, ideas, or beliefs." [Emphasis added]
***** 7. Key here is that all this applies to public universities. Private universities are _explicitly_ exempted from so much of it. So Liberty University and all those other fundamentalist schools receiving taxpayer money (see directly/indirectly above) _don't_ face any of these funding shutdowns, and _can_ limit speech all they want (for faculty, staff, and students) as long as it's publicised and "faith-based," but state and city schools _can't_. But private schools they can fall under tort law if they violate _their own stated policies_. So it's all about safe spaces for nazis, racists, misogynists, and fundamentalists, and open-season on everyone else.
***** 8. "Student organizations at public educational institutions should be able to restrict membership and leadership in their student organization on the basis of acceptance or adherence to the religious beliefs and tenets of the organization." Which means schools must support men-only groups, no-queers-allowed groups, etc.
This is a direct response to reactions _against_ shit like Milo and Charlottesville. Explicitly calls out "hecklers" and "disrupters" as the problem and who should be "restrained." (This talks about violence, but never of the right - see also the shooting of a counter-protester by a Milo fan at his UW appearance.)
To be clear, I'm not talking about the big event and murder the day of in Charlottesville, out in town. I'm talking about the night before, the "Jews will not replace us" torch march through campus where they surrounded and screamed at a much smaller group of counter-protesters for hours, _literally_ inches from faces, just screaming.
That's "protected speech" here, and if universities don't protect it, they lose funding.
Okay, I've spent like three (four?) hours on this, so I'm getting it posted now. It's no wonder they dropped this today, given how little attention will be paid compared to how much would've otherwise.
This is Pence. Understand that. This is Pence.
These aren't just about carving out massive exemptions to civil rights law for fundamentalist groups. Everybody expected that. It's not just about bashing the queers, though that's certainly part of it, through the protections it carves out and special protections and supremacy it grants to "faith based" horseshit.
But no. It's so much more. It's about Christianist supremacy, it's about looting, and in a big surprise, about creating safe-spaces for racists, misogynists, creationists, and actual, literal Nazis in schools, while making sure nobody else can escape them. The Department of Education document is four times the length of the others, and both the worst and most important. The others all show Pence's hand; that one shows what happens when someone like Pence has someone like DeVos to work with.
It relies a lot on Hobby Lobby to expand its reach, treating fundamentalist-owned for-profit corporations as "faith-based," with all that implies.
It's a blueprint for hell.
First the tweet that tipped me off about this. Second is my high-level first read and reactions. They're all bad, but the Department of Education version is by far the worst.
And please remember that I am not a lawyer.
Jessica Mason Pieklo
Rewire News
twitter.com/Hegemommy
https://twitter.com/Hegemommy/status/1217817678548631552
Welp the administration just released its faith-based regulations if you want to know what I'll be doing for most of today.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-26862/equal-participation-of-faith-based-organizations-in-the-department-of-labors-programs-and-activities
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-26923/ensuring-equal-treatment-of-faith-based-organizations
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-26937/uniform-administrative-requirements-cost-principles-and-audit-requirements-for-federal-awards-direct
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-27164/equal-participation-of-faith-based-organizations-in-usaids-programs-and-activities-implementation-of
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-27777/equal-participation-of-faith-based-organizations-in-department-of-justices-programs-and-activities
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-28142/equal-participation-of-faith-based-organizations-in-dhss-programs-and-activities
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/17/2019-28541/equal-opportunity-for-religious-organizations-in-us-department-of-agriculture-programs
Before we get into this, I must state: I am not a lawyer. I'm not reading this from the standpoint of a lawyer. I have some layperson familiarity - more than most, frankly, but that's another story - but that's it.
I am reading this from an experienced political standpoint. I'm reading with implicit context and history, and political intent. I have many years of fighting these fuckers - literally my entire life - so I know what they want, and how they want it, and what their language means internally. That is the source of my read, here. If I make what seems to be a leap, it's because something is obvious to me that is not obvious to someone who hasn't been fighting for her right to exist her entire life, directly against these fuckers. Ask me about it in comments, and I can explain.
There's a lot to read here, so I'm trying to hit the highlights. A lot of these are similar but presented individually for each of the various departments affected. In general:
* Removes "religious," replacing it with "faith-based," the preferred term of the fundamentalist right.
* Makes clear that all funding refers to both direct and indirect funding, e.g. use of vouchers by those receiving services.
* Removes requirement for "faith-based" groups receiving taxpayer funds directly _or indirectly_ (via vouchers, et al) to refer those they refuse to serve to other organisations that can and/or will serve them.
* Removes requirement that "faith-based" groups notify beneficiaries that participation in the group's religious activities is voluntary. (Removes requirement to "provide written notice to beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries of various rights, including nondiscrimination based on religion, the requirement that participation in any religious activities must be voluntary and that they must be provided separately from the Federally funded activities, and that beneficiaries may report violations.")
However, such participation cannot be explicitly _required_, and cannot be at the same _time and place_ as the taxpayer-funded social service in question. Also, you can't discriminate based on _belief_ of the taxpayer-funded beneficiary - but that's different to discriminating based on practice of course.
A little clarification is necessary here: religious _practice_ can be things like "Don't be gay," and particularly can be, "Don't be married to a person of your own gender." It can be "don't be a woman speaking in public" or "don't use birth control, much less get an abortion," or "don't be a woman with a job." So keep that in mind.
"An organization, whether faith-based or not, that receives Federal financial assistance shall not, with respect to services or activities funded by such financial assistance, discriminate against a program beneficiary or prospective program beneficiary on the basis of religion, a religious belief, a refusal to hold a religious belief, or a refusal to attend or participate in a religious practice. However, a faith-based organization receiving indirect Federal financial assistance need not modify any religious components or integration with respect to its program activities to accommodate a beneficiary who chooses to expend the indirect aid on the organization’s program and may require attendance at all activities that are fundamental to the program."
* Requires religious groups to be treated equally to secular groups regardless of their religious practices carte blanche - which means, for example, that fundamentalist groups hating queers and women get considered for taxpayer money equally to groups that don't.
* Declares that any "faith-based" organisation receiving taxpayer funding basically cannot be regulated at any level if they declare an area to be part of their "faith." Each group "shall retain its autonomy; right of expression; religious character; and independence from federal, state, and local governments."
This means _no_ level of government can address taxpayer-funded religious discrimination by these groups. They specifically call out hiring practices as an example, saying that "faith-based" organisations _can_ discriminate based on religiously-compatible "practice" and "adherence to religious tenants." This mostly will come down to "no queers and no women," but I feel safe in asserting that there will be efforts to expand this along other white supremacist lines, as this has already happened without these new regulations.
* Explicitly states that a lack of history of any specific faith and belief tenants cannot affect any of the above. “[n]either the HHS awarding agency nor any State or local government or other pass-through entity receiving funds under any HHS awarding agency program or service shall construe these provisions in such a way as to advantage or disadvantage faith-based organizations affiliated with historic or well-established religions or sects in comparison with other religions or sects."
This means you can start a new sect at any time with whatever religious requirements you want to require and get taxpayer funding. White Protestants Only, ahoy.
* Expands the list of "faith-based" to include corporations owned by fundamentalists; explicitly calls out the Hobby Lobby case. I was surprised to see it in the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Agriculture's versions (as well as others - Education, Justice), until I realised it's so they can use taxpayer money to hire contractors (and social service providers) that discriminate based on the "faith-based" beliefs of their management. Basically, it's for diverting funding to the fundamentalist scam-artists of the world.
* They _all_ say that you can't put _any_ additional regulatory requirements on "faith-based" groups, generically - this is a big kick in the teeth against oversight, more or less.
***** DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SPECIAL SECTION *****
All of the above applies, but the Education Department is where things get _really_ spicy. It has its own second agenda, "Part 2– Free Inquiry." This is entirely about protecting creationists, racists, misogynists, and anti-queer activists - and that's just the start.
***** 1. Big expansions in what a "religious organisation" means, expanding it to organisations "controlled by" by religious organisations. This expands all the exceptions to civil rights law and equal-protection law to such organisations. Explicitly references Hobby Lobby - a craft store corporation owned by fundamentalists - as an _example_ faith-based organisation. "Requiring faith-based organizations to comply with the alternative provider requirement could impose such a burden, such as in a case in which a faith-based organization has a religious objection to referring the beneficiary to an alternative provider that provided services in a manner that violated the organization’s religious tenets. See Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682, 720-26 (2014)."
***** 2. LONG rant - pages and pages of it - about how "free speech" is being "stifled" at universities. This gets to Part 2.
***** 3. Grants implicit non-profit status to groups that do not/will not apply for non-profit status due to a "sincerely-held religious belief" what the _fuck_ scam is this? ("The proposed regulations clarify that if the applicant would qualify under the existing methods of demonstrating nonprofit status but cannot register with a government agency such as the Internal Revenue Service because of a sincerely-held religious belief, the entity may still qualify as a nonprofit organization as long as the entity otherwise qualifies as a nonprofit organization under §75.51(b)(1) through (b)(4).")
This also appears in a few other departments, and I came to the conclusion that a lot of it is about hiring discriminatory social service providers and discriminatory corporations, ala Hobby Lobby.
***** 4. There's a lot about severability, and it's repeated constantly, meaning each part of this mess has to be struck down individually, as far as the regulation is concerned. They're expecting to lose some court cases here.
***** 5. Broadly exempts theology schools from falling under religious practice and/or acts of worship, making them much more eligible for various kinds of direct taxpayer funding. It's not universal - preparing people specifically to be ministers, for example, isn't exempted. Lots of resting here on "the study of theology does not necessarily implicate religious devotion or faith."
***** 6. HOLY SHIT PART TWO IS FOR NAZIS. Not just them, but literally the first thing DoE go to is the politics of nationalism. Funding bans focus on the grant level, but defending up to the entire institution is in play.
"The First Amendment applies to public institutions, and under the First Amendment, 'no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in **politics**, **nationalism**, **religion**, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.' As a result, officials at public institutions may not discriminate against their students’ [sic] or employees’ [sic] on the basis of their religious, political, philosophical, or ideological affinities, convictions, thoughts, ideas, or beliefs." [Emphasis added]
***** 7. Key here is that all this applies to public universities. Private universities are _explicitly_ exempted from so much of it. So Liberty University and all those other fundamentalist schools receiving taxpayer money (see directly/indirectly above) _don't_ face any of these funding shutdowns, and _can_ limit speech all they want (for faculty, staff, and students) as long as it's publicised and "faith-based," but state and city schools _can't_. But private schools they can fall under tort law if they violate _their own stated policies_. So it's all about safe spaces for nazis, racists, misogynists, and fundamentalists, and open-season on everyone else.
***** 8. "Student organizations at public educational institutions should be able to restrict membership and leadership in their student organization on the basis of acceptance or adherence to the religious beliefs and tenets of the organization." Which means schools must support men-only groups, no-queers-allowed groups, etc.
This is a direct response to reactions _against_ shit like Milo and Charlottesville. Explicitly calls out "hecklers" and "disrupters" as the problem and who should be "restrained." (This talks about violence, but never of the right - see also the shooting of a counter-protester by a Milo fan at his UW appearance.)
To be clear, I'm not talking about the big event and murder the day of in Charlottesville, out in town. I'm talking about the night before, the "Jews will not replace us" torch march through campus where they surrounded and screamed at a much smaller group of counter-protesters for hours, _literally_ inches from faces, just screaming.
That's "protected speech" here, and if universities don't protect it, they lose funding.
Okay, I've spent like three (four?) hours on this, so I'm getting it posted now. It's no wonder they dropped this today, given how little attention will be paid compared to how much would've otherwise.
This is Pence. Understand that. This is Pence.
