Religious freedom could top Sessions civil rights priorities
WEDNESDAY, FEB 15, 2017 03:45 AM EST
SADIE GURMAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump spoke to the National Prayer Breakfast this month, he underscored his vow to defend the religious rights of the conservative Christians who helped propel him to power.
Now, they expect the Justice Department under new Attorney General Jeff Sessions will reposition itself as a champion of what they see as that religious freedom.
It would be a welcome change for conservative Christians who say their concerns were marginalized under the Obama administration in favor of First Amendment and LGBT issues. Exactly how Sessions will approach the issue remains to be seen, but he has given them plenty of reasons to be hopeful.
As a Republican senator from Alabama, Sessions, a devout Methodist, argued that the separation of church and state is unconstitutional, and that the First Amendment’s bar on an establishment of religion has been interpreted too strictly, while its right to free exercise of religion has been diminished.
Asked at his confirmation hearing whether a “secular person” has “just as good a claim to understanding the truth as a person who is religious,” Sessions replied, “Well. I’m not sure.”
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http://www.salon.com/2017/02/15/religious-freedom-could-top-sessions-civil-rights-priorities/
