Yesterday was not just the National Day of Prayer. It was the national day of answered prayer for many conservative Christians! After an eight-year war on faith, President Trump finally called a ceasefire on the conflict started by Barack Obama with an executive order on religious freedom. The measure, which was celebrated in a signing ceremony at the White House, was the fulfillment of one of the most significant promises made by the longshot candidate: “to preserve and protect our religious liberty.”

For evangelicals, whose support propelled Trump to a historic win last November, this was one of the most meaningful returns on that investment. Although the order didn’t make it in under the 100-day wire, the quickness of it showed just how committed this administration is to bringing the government back in line with the First Amendment.

Among other things, the directive checks another big box on the White House’s to-do list — lifting the gag order on churches and other nonprofits under the Johnson Amendment. Since the first days of his candidacy, Donald Trump has railed against the 60-year-old piece of tax code that liberals have turned into a club to punish pastors with. For too long, the Left has used the IRS to threaten the charitable status of churches who dared to speak out on the moral issues of the day.

Of course, the irony of this whole debate is that pulpits are free to do exactly that under the U.S. Constitution. It was only when liberals seized on this twisted interpretation of the Johnson Amendment that pastors came under fire for exercising their God-given rights. To the phony claim that churches would somehow turn into mini-PACs, the White House was clear: “Nobody is suggesting that churches are allowed, or it’s legal, for tax-exempt organizations to take out ads endorsing candidates. That’s illegal now,” said an administration spokesman. “We’re not changing what’s legal, we’re not changing what’s illegal…” Instead, the nation’s tax agency is directed to use “discretion” in enforcing the language named after JFK’s successor.

Medical professionals, charities, businesses, and even nuns who’ve suffered under the outrageous mandate of Obamacare will finally have the relief they need to say no to insurance coverage that violates their conscience. After years of court battles, they’ll be free from regulatory harassment of including contraception and abortifacients in their health care plans. But that’s not all the order does. It sets in place a multi-step process that will provide some long-overdue protections by directing the Attorney General Jeff Sessions to develop guidelines for every federal agency to ensure they protect and promote religious freedom. This includes members of our military, who, under the Obama administration, have been systematically silenced and even purged. Men and women like Chaplain Wes Modder (U.S. Navy-Ret.) and Monifa Sterling, who stared down the ends of their careers for their deeply-held beliefs, can finally come out of hiding and live out their faith openly.

Finally, for our friends like Barronelle Stutzman and Don Vander Boon, who’ve suffered for their biblical views on marriage, there’s hope. “No American should be forced to choose between the dictates of the federal government and the tenets of their faith,” President Trump told those of us gathered in the Rose Garden for yesterday’s ceremony. “We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced anymore,” the president said. “We will never ever stand for religious discrimination.”

Thanks to this White House, the open season on Christians and other people of faith is coming to an end. And Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) looks forward to building on the White House’s progress. “On this National Day of Prayer, I commend the Trump administration for taking action and will continue to make fighting for religious liberty a top priority of my speakership.” As we work with the Trump administration to address the problems created by Obama, it understands the dangers of the anti-freedom policies of the last administration. But, more than that, it’s committed to undoing those policies and restoring true religious freedom for everyone.

Thursday’s step starts the process of reversing the devastating trends of the last decade to punish charities, pastors, family owned businesses, and honest, hard-working people simply for living out their faith. On behalf of FRC and the hundreds of thousands of families we represent, we offer our deepest thanks to the president and look forward to assisting him in returning America to the land of the free.

(Originally published here.)

Republicans Back Pact to Gut Obamacare

Former President Obama didn’t have the best day on Thursday. First, Donald Trump took aim at his longstanding fight against faith with an executive order on religious liberty. Then, after more than 50 tries, House Republicans came one step closer to finishing a job they started seven years ago: defunding Planned Parenthood and replacing Obama’s miserable excuse for a health care policy. In what may soon be their single greatest accomplishment since wrestling control away from Democrats, Republicans in the House finally paid back voters who sent them to Washington with one goal in mind: replacing Obamacare.

By a 217-213 vote, the House advanced the mission the Americans elected them for — defunding the nation’s biggest abortion group and gutting an unsustainable and unconscionable law. Despite almost three months of drama, the GOP managed to pull together a coalition that put the American Health Care Act (AHCA) over the top, fulfilling a major pledge the president’s party has campaigned on since 2010. FRC, which worked with the House Freedom Caucus to smooth out the bill’s rough edges, was as thrilled as voters that the final product isn’t just pro-life, but pro-family. After taking a bite out of Americans’ wallets for years, House leaders have struck a compromise that lowers premiums, boosts freedom, and protects taxpayers and the unborn.

Yesterday’s win was a long time coming for pro-lifers, who watched with revulsion every David Daleiden video detailing the horrors of Cecile Richards’s group. For once, the moral injustice done to taxpayers has a voice: Congress’s. There was the usual phony panic from Planned Parenthood, which insisted that if Congress didn’t send it its usual half-billion taxpayer dollars, women’s health care would cease to exist. (What it didn’t mention is that the money would be redirected to thousands of local health clinics — which, incidentally, haven’t been referred for criminal prosecution.) Not surprisingly, it’s called the effort to defund its organization a “national scandal.” But honestly, the only real scandal is that America has been funding the group as long as it has!

Let’s hope the Senate follows quickly in the House’s footsteps and sends the AHCA to the desk of the pro-life president we’ve been waiting for. It’s time for Donald Trump to make history and bring our nation closer to the day when all human life is protected under law.

(Originally published here.)

A Running Gag on Churches…

As grateful as we are for the president’s executive order on religious liberty, there’s no substitute for congressional action. And yesterday, Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) pushed us closer to that with a special hearing on our First Freedom. As part of the push to formally roll back the Johnson Amendment, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on a hot topic, “Examining a Church’s Right to Free Speech.” FRC’s Government Affairs General Counsel, Mandi Ancalle, was asked to testify on the importance of giving the church back its voice in the public square. Here’s a portion of what she told members of the committee:

Churches and other nonprofit organizations have important roles in society — helping the sick, feeding the poor, counseling the down-trodden — ministering to people in need. Because of their special role in society, they are tax exempt. For almost two hundred years, their work and nonprofit status did not compromise their ability to speak freely about political candidates and issues. That is, until 1954 when then-Senator Lyndon Johnson used his political power to weaken organizations politically opposed to him by conditioning nonprofit organizations’ tax-exempt status on their remaining silent on political candidates.

Since its passage, the Johnson Amendment has been used to muzzle and censor pastors and leaders of nonprofit organizations and to chill the political speech of tax-exempt organizations, religious and non-religious, on both sides of the aisle… Penalizing pastors and leaders of other 501©(3) organizations – and muzzling them because of their nonprofit status – is an unconstitutional restriction on speech.

Leaders of the House and Senate have tried to remedy that with the Free Speech Fairness Act. Instead of abolishing the Johnson Amendment, this bill fixes it so that the IRS can no longer breathe down the necks of nonprofits and religious groups, threatening to take away their tax exempt status. “It’s time that we eliminate the targeting of the IRS. Enough is enough and this has been going on for far too long,” Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA), one of the bill’s co-authors, said. “And this is absolutely unconscionable that our government would force individuals to choose between their constitutionally protected rights or their faith.” For more on the issue, check out Congressman Hice’s talk at FRC headquarters earlier this week.

(Originally published here.)

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC. Reprinted by permission.