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Salon Writer Lambastes Trump’s Religious Freedom Day Proclamation As ‘Gospel Of Intolerance’

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Joshua Gill Religion Reporter
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A Salon writer accused President Donald Trump of using his Religious Freedom Day proclamation to preach intolerance against Muslims and the LGBT community.

Rachel Leah claimed that Trump’s commitments in the Tuesday proclamation to fight ISIS in defense of persecuted religious minorities and to uphold religious rights constituted a “gospel of intolerance.” Leah bemoaned the fact that Trump did not mention Christian, anti-Semitic, and islamophobic stateside murders as a threat of magnitude equal to ISIS, and asserted that his proclamation for the defense of Americans’ religious liberties was actually an encouragement to use religious freedom for targeted persecution of Muslims and homosexuals.

Trump declared Jan. 16 2018 as Religious Freedom Day and restated his promises to confront and overcome the most prominent sources of religious persecution and oppression that currently threaten Americans.

“I addressed these issues in an Executive Order that helps ensure Americans are able to follow their consciences without undue Government interference and the Department of Justice has issued guidance to Federal agencies regarding their compliance with laws that protect religious freedom. No American — whether a nun, nurse, baker, or business owner — should be forced to choose between the tenants of faith or adherence to the law,” the proclamation reads.

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The proclamation also makes specific mention of genocide and other forms of oppression committed against religious minorities abroad, including Christians, Yazidis and Muslims.

“”We will continue to condemn and combat extremism, terrorism, and violence against people of faith, including genocide waged by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria against Yezidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims,” the proclamation added.

Leah took issue with both statements and argued that Trump was promoting religious liberty for all American citizens at the expense of the rights of the LGBT community.

“While that stipulation did not make Trump’s official executive order, his language used in the proclamation insinuates that it is anti-gay business owners who are the victims here, not LGBTQ patrons and employees seeking equal rights,” Leah wrote.

Leah argued that Trump should have also mentioned Christian, anti-Semitic, and islamophobic stateside murders since, in her view, they are threats of a magnitude equal to ISIS.

“Trump uses this proclamation as yet another avenue to promote his usual anti-Muslim bias, offering just the ‘Islamic states of Iraq and Syria’ as an example faith-inspired extremism, terrorism and violence both in the United States and abroad. There is no mention of any of the many recent stateside murders inspired by Christian-Identity theory, anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, including those committed by Dylann Roof, whose crimes white supremacists defended as an act of faith,” Leah wrote.

Leah provided no sources or statistics to demonstrate the scope of the “many recent stateside murders” and how such a threat compares to the 140 ISIS attacks committed outside of Iraq and Syria around the world that have killed over 2,000 people and wounded thousands more. Nor did Leah mention the numbers from the latest DHS report that show that 75 percent of terrorism acts committed in the U.S. since 9/11 have been committed by foreign-born immigrants, as opposed to homegrown white supremacists.

Leah also asserted that whether or not Trump’s proclamation did in some way promote religious tolerance, his “history of discriminatory practices and comments” focusing on Islamic extremism robbed his proclamation of any positive meaning.

“That he used a proclamation meant to honor and observe religious tolerance to forward intolerance is pure Trumpism,” Leah wrote.

Leah said she much preferred the focus on combating religion-inspired domestic hate crimes in the Religious Freedom Proclamation of former President Barack Obama, under whose administration government breaches of religious liberty spiked, rising 75 percent in frequency from 2014 to June 2017.

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