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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