RELIGION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump spoke to one of the most faithful blocs of his base on Friday [10-13-17], telling attendees at this year’s Values Voter Summit that in America ‘we don’t worship government, we worship God.’
Trump was the first sitting president to address the annual gathering of Christian conservatives, and while he’s had trouble enacting some of his campaign promises legislatively so far in his term, he has ticked off many boxes with the evangelical voters that helped propel him to the Oval Office…
He got a standing ovation when he talked of appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Trump noted he signed a religious liberty order on the National Day of Prayer that eased enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, which regulated political activity of churches. And he reminded the crowd that last week he also weakened the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act, which some religious groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor opposed…
Referencing his announcement late Thursday night that he was ending payments for the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies for low-income Americans, he said his efforts to enact a health care overhaul — not helped thus far by having a GOP-controlled Congress — was a ‘step by step by step’ process, and that the latest action was a ‘big step.’…
Trump also got acclaim for his recent criticism of NFL players who have kneeled during the national anthem in order to protest what they see as racial injustice in the country. He got another standing ovation when he proclaimed that ‘we respect our great American flag.’ “
-Jessica Taylor, “Trump To Values Voters: In America ‘We Don’t Worship Government, We Worship God’,” NPR, Oct. 13, 2017 09:33am