{"id":1746940,"date":"2022-11-21T12:32:49","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T17:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1746940"},"modified":"2022-11-21T12:32:52","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T17:32:52","slug":"with-time-running-out-mike-lee-urges-colleagues-to-protect-religious-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/with-time-running-out-mike-lee-urges-colleagues-to-protect-religious-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"With Time Running Out, Mike Lee Urges Colleagues To Protect Religious Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwith-time-running-out-mike-lee-urges-colleagues-to-protect-religious-freedom%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1746940&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), fiercely fighting an uphill battle to protect religious freedom, wrote a letter urging his colleagues to attach his amendment to the Respect for Marriage Act, which seeks to codify same-sex marriage into law.<\/p>\n<p>Lee\u2019s amendment passionately defends the right of religious people and religious institutions from predatory actions of the Federal government. In Lee\u2019s letter to his colleagues, he notes a frightening exchange between Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and Obama administration Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in 2015 during the oral arguments in <em>Obergefell v. Hodges<\/em>, in which the Supreme Court required states to license and recognize same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n<p>When Alito asked whether religious universities opposed to same-sex marriage would\u00a0lose their tax-exempt status, Verrilli replied, \u201cIt\u2019s certainly going to be\u00a0an issue. I don\u2019t deny that. I don\u2019t deny that, Justice Alito \u2014 it is going to be an\u00a0issue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd it is an issue,\u201d Lee writes in his letter. \u201cObergefell did not make a private right of action for aggrieved individuals to sue those who oppose same-sex marriage. It did not create a mandate for the Department of Justice to sue where it perceived an institution\u00a0opposed same-sex marriage, but the Respect for Marriage Act will. What we can\u00a0expect should this bill become law is more litigation against those institutions and\u00a0individuals trying to live according to their sincerely held religious beliefs and\u00a0moral convictions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we move forward, let us be sure to keep churches, religious charities, and religious universities out of litigation in the first instance. No American should face legal harassment or retaliation from the federal government for holding sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions,\u201d Lee cautions his colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy amendment would ensure that federal bureaucrats do not take discriminatory\u00a0actions against individuals, organizations, nonprofits, and other entities based or their sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions about marriage by\u00a0prohibiting the denial or revocation of tax exempt status, licenses, contracts,\u00a0benefits, etc. It would affirm that individuals still have the right to act according to\u00a0their faith and deepest convictions even outside of their church or home,\u201d Lee explains.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe free exercise of religion is absolutely essential to the health of our Republic. We must have the courage to protect it,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We still have time to protect religious liberty. We\u2019re asking our colleagues to support my amendment. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/y7JXkxNXTZ\">pic.twitter.com\/y7JXkxNXTZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SenMikeLee\/status\/1594043506842017792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 19, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Lee\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lee.senate.gov\/services\/files\/CB39DE23-EF22-4CDC-B645-BF756A5F94D1\">amendment<\/a> states: \u201cThe federal government may not take any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially on the basis that such person speaks, or acts, in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief, or moral conviction, that marriage is or should be recognized as a union of \u2014 one man and one woman, or two individuals as recognized under Federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The amendment states that \u201cdiscriminatory action\u201d includes an action taken by the Federal government to \u201calter in any way the Federal tax treatment of, or cause any tax, penalty, or payment to be assessed against, or deny, delay, or revoke an exemption of taxation\u201d to any of the people of whom the preceding paragraph refers to.<\/p>\n<p>The amendment also forbids \u201cdiscriminatory action\u201d including disallowing a deduction for Federal tax purposes of any charitable contribution by the aforesaid people, as well as withholding Federal grants, funds, etc., from such people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA person may assert an actual or threatened violation of this title as a claim or a defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding and obtain compensatory damages, injunctive relief, declaratory relief or any other appropriate relief against the Federal government,\u201d the amendment declares.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), fiercely fighting an uphill battle to protect religious freedom, wrote a letter urging his colleagues to attach his amendment to the Respect for Marriage Act, which seeks to codify same-sex marriage into law. Lee\u2019s amendment passionately defends the right of religious people and religious institutions from predatory actions of the Federal &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":1746943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1746940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1746940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1746943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1746940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1746940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1746940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}