Obama to Take Away Bibles and Religious Freedom

Imagine...

*The government prosecuting a small business owner -- perhaps a Christian bookstore -- for declining to hire an open-homosexual or cross-dresser.

*Your employer telling you to remove the Bible from your desk because it is offensive to the homosexual or cross-dresser he was forced to hire.

*Your church being forced to choose between hiring a man who dresses as a woman to work in the Mother's Day Out or preschool program or facing federal investigation.

*Your teen coming home from his faith-based summer camp and telling you his councilor was an openly-practicing homosexual.

Unimaginable, you say? The government can't force churches to do that, can it?

It can -- if ENDA becomes law.

Except, that it can't. All of that is completely untrue.

Far-right Christian fundamentalist group Family Research Council has a clever idea for raising money: convince supporters that President Barack Obama will take away their Bibles and turn their kids gay.

That's essentially what the group's newest fundraising alert amounts to, with its claim that the president has a "plan" to "impose homosexuality" and "silence Christianity."

The group's four-page letter, available here [PDF link] courtesy of Think Progress, reads like end-of-days fiction, with Godless liberals on the march and only your dollars keeping America from the fires of hell.

In truth, it's a lengthy, deceptive rant about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would ensure gay, lesbian and transgendered people have a right to work alongside other Americans without fear of reprisal by the employers due solely to their sexual orientation or appearance.


According to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), "ENDA exempts all religious organizations, which includes corporations, associations, and religious societies from all of the ENDA laws. In addition, all educational institutions are exempt if the educational institution is at least substantially controlled or owned by a religious organization or if the institution's curriculum is directed towards the propagation of a religion."

The Religious exemption even allows religious organizations to discriminate on the basis of faith. For example, in a 1987 Supreme Court case the Court ruled that a gym operated by the Mormon Church could require its janitor to be a Mormon in good standing. ENDA permits religious organizations to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

ENDA specifically says that religious bookstores and day care centers areexempt from the following the ENDA provisions.

http://www.frc.org/

for FULL story go to http://rawstory.com/2009/12/farright-fundraising-tack-obama-plans-impose-homosexuality/