Saturday, February 4, 2017

Via JMG: Tony Perkins: It’s “Fake News” To Claim Religious Liberty Executive Orders Would Legalize Discrimination

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Via press release from hate group leader Tony Perkins:
The Left’s cabal is in an uproar over word of new religious liberty protections potentially coming from the White House. What they consistently refuse to recognize, however is just how much of this fundamental first freedom we need to restore in the wake of the Obama regime.
The hysteria stems from word of a draft executive order that was leaked to The Nation, who claims that the order would create “wholesale exemptions for individuals and organizations who claim religious objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity.” Like most of the Left’s fake news, this is more about advancing their anti-Christian agenda than it is reporting real news.
What would the executive order on religious liberty do and why is it needed? It would create a general directive for all federal agencies to adhere “to the extent permitted by law” to religious freedom laws and principles in agency actions, regulations or policies. It properly recognizes that religion should not be confined to a home or house of worship alone, but to “all activities of life,” such as those that involve social services, education, health care, employment, obtaining “grants or contracts,” or otherwise participating in the “public square.”
Religious expression has every right to exist in the public square as do other forms of expression. The order also directs federal agencies to implement the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, along with the Title VII religious protections for federal employees, religious organizations, and schools.
As I said yesterday, President Trump has been very clear on the importance of religious liberty. The free exercise of religion has suffered greatly under the policies and orders of President Obama. I am confident that the Trump administration will protect this first and most fundamental freedom.
Perkins has been making the rounds on cable outlets to press for the executive order, no doubt in the hope that Trump will see him.

Make the jump here to read the original and more at JMG

Via Daily Dharma / Elements of Stability

The transformative power of Buddhist meditation occurs when the stability and vividness of shamatha is unified with the penetrating insights of vipashyana. Shamatha by itself results in a temporary alleviation of the fundamental causes of suffering, and vipashyana by itself provides only fleeting glimpses of reality.

—B. Alan Wallace, "Within You Without You"