Both Harris and Trump are beginning to make their closing arguments. Harris seems to be going more negative, attacking Trump on a variety of fronts. Trump may be reaching out to his evangelical base more than he has been, though it’s difficult to tell with him. Last Monday he spoke to a large group of pastors in North Carolina for an hour. Last Sunday Harris spoke at a church service in Atlanta, for just 18 minutes. I watched both so you don’t have to.
First the obvious: campaigning in a church on Sunday is just not right, and should not happen. There are a thousand other places to speak to a crowd in Georgia. The Johnson Amendment prevents church leaders (and any nonprofit) from endorsing political candidates or else the church/nonprofit could lose its nonprofit status. Bipartisan educational events are allowed. I don’t know if any Republicans were invited to speak, but Harris could have just not created the situation. (There’s no penalty on a candidate who speaks at a church or nonprofit.)
Harris stayed on message for the setting. She talked about the parable of the Good Samaritan who helped someone whom no one else would help. She talked about helping the poor and the needy. She said people should live their faith, for example by helping hurricane victims. She made no campaign promises.
At another Harris rally this week in Wisconsin someone in the crowd yelled “Christ is king” while Harris was speaking. She said “Oh you guys are at the wrong rally. I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.” For this she has been widely accused of being anti-Christian by conservatives.
Trump did make campaign promises in his speech, a lot of them. Most actually require Congress to do something:
- Overturn the Johnson Amendment in his first week.
- Set up a new federal task force to fight anti-Christian bias. (The heckler at the Harris rally said on X afterwards, “Christianity is the most hated and persecuted religion in the world.”)
- Establish universal school choice so parents can send their children to whatever kind of school they want including religious schools.
- Establish a $10,000 tax credit for expenses for parents who homeschool their kids.
- Reaffirm that God created two genders.
- “We will proudly say Merry Christmas again.”
- And finally, “Everyone will prosper.”
I wouldn't be surprised if Trump shows up at a church this Sunday. It would help with any stray evangelicals. Also, he has more time on Sundays now that the Secret Service told him they can't guarantee his safety at his two favorite golf courses because of the logistics, so his weekly Sunday golf games have been on hold.
Trump’s four years of executive orders demonstrate his abysmal record on separating church from state. In his Monday speech he gave one example: “I issued guidance that the right to freedom to worship does not end at the door to a public school.” Here’s another one that makes sure faith-based organizations in federal grant programs can discriminate based on that faith. President Biden reversed it.
Almost every state has early voting (Sorry Alabamians) so I’m again linking to our Secular America Votes page where you can check your registration status, see what ballot initiatives you will vote on, and maybe still get an absentee ballot.
Control of both houses of Congress is clearly at stake in this election and will decide whether the new president can get much done, so here again is the link to our House and Senate Voter Scorecards.
Finally, our intern Chris wrote an interesting article for the Blog on how the authors of Project 2025 use semantics to disguise the true intentions behind their policy proposals.
More on the election next week.
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