Thanks to Nancy Pelosi and her House Democrats, Donald Trump’s beloved border wall was already on life support. However, another “barrier” has just popped up that could kill the wall once and for all: the Religious Freedom Act.
Politics
In case you’re unfamiliar, the Religious Freedom Act ensures that concerns of religious freedom are protected. Interestingly, it’s the law Hobby Lobby used to successfully deny employees health benefits for the “unChristian-like” use of contraceptives. It’s also what VP Mike Pence used while Governor of Indiana to discriminate against gays and lesbians on the grounds of his own personal religious freedom.
Now, Pence’s favorite “Act” is about to backfire on ‘The Donald.’
On Monday during a campaign rally in El Paso, Texas, Donald Trump proudly proclaimed that construction of his border wall was proceeding full steam ahead.
“We’ve actually started a big, big portion of the wall today at a very important location, and it’s going up pretty quickly over the next nine months,” Trump claimed to supporters holding “finish the wall” signs.
Although Trump’s Republican-led Congress did allocate $600 million in March of 2018 to construct 33 miles of new barriers in the Rio Grande Valley, they were all completely unaware of a tiny one-room chapel owned by the Diocese of Brownsville which stands directly in the path of the proposed new wall segment.
La Lomita Catholic Chapel is completely opposed to the border wall, so they are invoking a little protection scheme straight out of Mike Pence’s bag of dirty tricks: the Religious Freedom Act.
“As we made pretty clear in our briefing filed on behalf of the diocese in court last week in McAllen, Texas, the diocese intends to assert its rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to fight any building of the wall there,” said Mary McCord, a lawyer at Georgetown University Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection who is also representing the diocese.
“In other words, that act prohibits government actions that substantially burden the exercise of religion without the government establishing a compelling governmental interest and no other means of satisfying that interest,” McCord added.
“Such a structure would limit the freedom of the church to exercise her mission in the Rio Grande Valley, and would, in fact, be a sign contrary to the church’s mission,” Bishop Daniel E. Flores said in a statement.
Yes, you read correctly. The same legal loophole Mike Pence once used to thwart gays could now be used to thwart Trump’s border wall — and all in the name of religion.
“There are people there every day who engage in prayer. There are services held there. There’s been a novena going on for the last nine weeks to pray for no wall. There are palm Sunday celebrations, baptisms, etc. It’s in use.” – Mary McCord
The church is on the US side of the border and serves worshipers from both the US and Mexico. Therefore, building a barrier between the two countries would impede on the church’s ability to provide its religious faith to all of its worshippers.
“Based on the government’s plans, the wall’s design would burden free exercise of religion” and “would be a physical barrier between those who seek to worship at the chapel, which dates back to the 1800s,” McCord said.
Donald Trump’s original plan was to “Build a beautiful wall from sea to shining sea” that Mexico would pay for. After Mexico laughed in his face over the very suggestion that he could make them pay, Trump later pared back the wall to be made into only a series of segments. Then, the US government shutdown happened and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was able to force Trump into defeat over the wall standoff. Now, not only does Trump appear reserved to sign a bipartisan deal by Friday (that doesn’t give him $5 billion for his wall) just to keep the government open, but even IF he proceeds with attempting to build segments of the wall, the Religious Freedom Act is at the ready to put a damper on those plans at the request of a little Texas chapel.
So, thanks, Mike Pence, for the Religious Freedom Act. Because of you, karma wins again!
Oh boy this would be some poetic justice. This made me laugh so hard.