PRESIDENT BIDEN'S POLICIES:
DEPARTURES FROM CATHOLIC TEACHINGS
CATHOLIC LEAGUE FOR RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL RIGHTS
JUNE 7, 2021
January 20, 2021 – Biden signed an executive order affirming that
"children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they
will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school
sports," affirming his campaign promise to allow minors to use
facilities and participate in high school sports opposite their biological
sex. While campaigning, in response to a question from a parent of a
transgender child, Biden said that there would be "zero
discrimination" when it came to minors seeking to change their
gender.
January 20, 2021 – Biden issued an executive order requiring all
federal agencies to implement the ruling in the Supreme Court
decision Bostock v. Clayton County, which treats sexual orientation
and gender identity as protected classes. This is a grave injustice that
erases the differences and complementary relationship between man
and woman.
January 22, 2021 – Biden issued a statement on the 48th anniversary
of Roe v. Wade describing the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision as a
"foundational precedent" to which all judicial nominees should
commit. Biden called for Roe’s codification.
January 23, 2021 – The Department of Justice announced that it
would repeal a Trump administration memo that blocked the
enforcement of the Bostock ruling in federal law.
January 25, 2021 – Biden signed an order that would allow
transgender persons to serve in the Armed Forces. As part of the
order, Biden urged the Defense Department to create a process that
would allow individuals to change sexes while serving.
January 28, 2021 – Biden issued the "Memorandum on Protecting
Women's Health at Home and Abroad." This memorandum revokes
the Mexico City Policy, which is a U.S. government policy that
requires foreign non-governmental organizations to certify that they
will not "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family
planning."
January 28, 2021 – Biden instructed the Department of Health and
Human Services to immediately move to consider rescinding the
Trump administration rule blocking health care providers in the
federally funded Title X family planning program from referring
patients for abortions.
January 28, 2021 –Biden ordered that the necessary steps be taken to
resume funding to the United Nations Population Fund, which
promotes family planning through the abortion.
January 28, 2021 – Biden directed United States Agency for
International Development and other United States government
foreign assistance programs to ensure that adequate funds are being
directed to support abortion rights.
February 4, 2021 – Biden issued a "Memorandum on Advancing the
Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and
Intersex Persons Around the World." This will limit the ability of
faith-based organizations to assist in foreign aid.
February 4, 2021 –Biden signed an executive order allowing for nonmarried couples to be treated as married for the purposes of the
refugee system in certain circumstances.
February 25, 2021 – The House passed the Equality Act. Biden on the
campaign trail had made enacting this legislation within his first 100
days in office a top legislative priority.
o The act would effectively gut the 1993 Religious Freedom
Restoration Act, eviscerating important religious rights.
o State laws that protect religious liberty would be gutted.
- Freedom of speech, belief, and thought, as the U.S. Bishops
have said, would be put "at risk." Conscience rights are the
most important of all rights. When they are attacked, all
liberties are jeopardized.
- Taxpayer-funded abortions would become a reality.
- The bishops stress that "Houses of worship and other religious
spaces will be turned into places of 'public accommodation.'"
- Adoption and foster care providers would have their rights
stripped.
- Catholic hospitals would no longer be allowed to govern as
Catholic facilities, threatening healthcare for everyone,
especially the poor.
- Starting in kindergarten, students would be indoctrinated in the
LGBT agenda.
- Parental rights would be decimated.
- Men who transition to female could compete in women’s
sports, effectively working against the rights of women.
- Privacy rights would be a thing of the past. As has already
happened, a man who thinks of himself as a woman would be
allowed to use the women’s locker room.
February 25, 2021 – Rachel Levine, a transgender born a biological
male, was Biden's nomination for Assistant Secretary for HHS. When
questioned about sex transitioning of minors during his confirmation
hearing, Levine did not oppose the idea of allowing minors to receive
hormone therapy and puberty blockers.
March 4, 2021 – Biden supports the For the People Act (H.R. 1), a bill
that calls into question the impartiality of those who have religious
affiliations. The objectionable provision is directed at a person's
suitability serving on a state's redistricting commission. It assumes
that people of faith – but not atheists – are inclined to be partisan
observers, thus coming dangerously close to invoking a "religious
test."
March 8, 2021 – Biden issued a statement on the introduction of the
Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA), voicing his
support for VAWA’s reauthorization. Unfortunately, the
reauthorization includes gender identity language that undermines the
intended purpose of VAWA and thereby harms the very women it
seeks to protect.
March 11, 2021 – As part of Biden's American Rescue Plan Act, there
was no language that reflects the longstanding, bi-partisan consensus
policy to prohibit taxpayer dollars from funding abortions
domestically and internationally. The policy was needed because this
bill includes many general references to healthcare that, absent the
express exclusion of abortion, have consistently been interpreted by
federal courts not only to allow, but to compel, the provision of
abortion without meaningful limit.
March 17, 2021 – Biden's White House issued a statement in support
of the House resolution to remove the ratification deadline for the
Equal Rights Amendment. The ERA would mandate federal funding
for abortion and eliminate sex distinctions in the law, thus eliminating
the existing legal protections for biological women.
March 18, 2021 – The Office of Population Affairs at
HHS announced the Biden administration’s plan to repeal the Trumpera Protect Life Rule governing Title X by the end of the year. This
announcement was in direct response to President Biden’s executive
order issued on January 28.
March 30, 2021 – Secretary of State Antony Blinken disbanded the
"Commission on Unalienable Rights," because it overemphasized
religious liberty. This was commissioned by Secretary Pompeo to
"provide...advice and recommendations concerning international
human rights matters...[and] fresh thinking about human rights
discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s
founding principles of natural law and natural rights." Instead,
Blinken would rather treat religious liberty as a coequal right,
diminishing its status freeing the State Department to promote LGBT
and abortion rights.
March 31, 2021 – The Department of Defense released a statement
affirming Biden's executive order on transgender persons in the
military stating that the Department will "provide a path for those in
service for medical treatment, gender transition, and recognition in
one’s self-identified gender."
April 13, 2021 – Under Biden, the Food and Drug Administration is
no longer enforcing the "in-person dispensing requirement" for the
chemical abortion pills.
April 13, 2021 – Under Biden, the USAID Middle East Bureau
renamed the "Religious and Ethnic Communities Office" to the
"Equity and Diverse Communities in the Middle East and North
Africa Office" to shift the Bureau's focus away from protecting the
rights of religious minorities in the Middle East and emphasize other
groups such as LGBT.
April 14, 2021 – HHS introduced the Title X changes outlined by
Biden's "Memorandum on Protecting Women's Health at Home and
Abroad." Under these new rules, grantees would be required to refer
for abortions, despite moral or religious objections, effectively
banning otherwise pro-life grantees from participating.
April 16, 2021 – Under Biden, the National Institute of Health
removed restrictions on human fetal tissue research.
April 20, 2021 – After a group of Catholic doctors and hospitals won
a case over an HHS rule that would compel them to provide gender-
transition surgeries, regardless of their conscientious beliefs, the
Biden administration appealed to keep this mandate in place.
April 22, 2021 – The Department of Housing and Urban Development
announced changes to the Equal Access Rule, which would require
participants in the Department’s Office of Community Planning and
Development programs to accommodate transgender persons based on
their gender identity. This would compel Catholic shelters to house
individuals of the opposite sex.
April 25, 2021 – The DOJ issued a statement of interest in favor of a
Georgia transgender prisoner who is suing the Georgia Department of
Corrections for failing to house him based on his gender identity
because Georgia does not want to house people of one biological sex
with those of the other.
May 10, 2021 – The Department of Health and Human Services
announced that it would reinstate an Obama-era rule that would
remove exemptions for religious and Catholic hospitals that refused to
provide transgender services and procedures that go against their
religious beliefs. The rule interpreted "sex discrimination" under
Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act to include "gender identity."
This is a major blow to the religious liberty rights of Catholic doctors
and hospitals. It would force doctors and hospitals to provide sex
reassignment surgeries, even if these surgeries go against their
religious beliefs, as well as cover these surgeries and procedures in
their insurance policies.
May 12, 2021 – HHS Secretary Xavier Beccera, who voted against a
law that banned partial-birth abortion when he was a congressman,
was asked if he would respect this law. He made it clear he would not.
He justified this stance by falsely claiming that there is no such law.
In 2003 Congress passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and
President George W. Bush signed it.
May 14, 2021 – The White House Office of Faith-Based and
Neighborhood Partnerships met with leaders of six secular
organizations: Freedom From Religion Foundation, the American
Humanist Association, American Atheists, Center for Inquiry, ExMuslims of North America and the Secular Coalition for America.
They expressed their displeasure with the pro-religious liberty policies
of the previous administration, accusing it of fomenting “Christian
nationalism.”
May 17, 2021 – After the Supreme Court said it would take up a case
involving Mississippi's ban on abortion after 15 weeks, White House
press secretary Jen Psaki informed reports that Biden was "committed
to codifying" Roe v. Wade no matter what the Court decides.
May 28, 2021 – Biden released his budget proposal for FY2022, and it
allocates money for abortions since it has no Hyde Amendment
language. This is the first budget proposal since 1993 that does not
include conscience protections to ensure federal funds are not used for
abortions.
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