Sunday, February 19, 2017

Christian Business Threats to End

Gov’t. Jackboots Threaten Biz Over Leaving Tracts in Employees’ Breakroom, 2/18/17

(The Daily Signal) A religious liberty organization is asking President Donald Trump to sign a proposed executive order that would protect the religious freedom of a family-owned business and others like it from the punitive actions of an executive agency.

“The Vander Boons are at risk of having their plant shut down and their employees left jobless because of the [Department of Agriculture’s] unfair targeting of the Vander Boons for their religious beliefs,” wrote Michael Farris, the new president of legal defense organization Alliance Defending Freedom, in a letter sent to Trump Wednesday. Farris asked Trump to sign an executive order that could help Americans like Donald and Ellen Vander Boon, owners of the West Michigan Beef Company.

The Vander Boons are facing closure due to the United States Department of Agriculture threatening to pull inspectors from reviewing their business. The department had made a decision that “prohibits [the] family-owned Michigan meatpacking facility from including religious literature concerning marriage on a break room table,” according to Alliance Defending Freedom.

In early February, a copy of the religious freedom executive order was first obtained by ABC News. “If President Trump signs the leaked version of the draft [executive order], it would provide immediate help to Mr. Vander Boon,” Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote in an email to The Daily Signal.

Tedesco added that a section in the leaked executive order specifies that “‘all agencies shall promptly withdraw or rescind any rulings, directives, regulations, guidance, positions, or interpretations that are inconsistent with this order to the extent of their inconsistency.’

This section would require the USDA to rescind its unlawful policy and the order that Mr. Vander Boon restrict his religious expression.”

The religious freedom executive order, reportedly called “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” would protect individuals like the Vander Boons from violating religious beliefs and require federal agencies to accommodate those beliefs….



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