Donald Trump has released his own op-ed in the Latter Day Saints-owned Deseret News in Salt Lake City and he blames Hillary Clinton for infringing on religious liberties.
“Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have tried to undermine our religious
liberties on the altar of political correctness,” Trump said. “They have challenged
the rights of businesses and religious institutions to speak openly
about their faith. Undermining religious liberty has been a trend in the
Democratic Party for decades.”
The same day that Trump announced he would have an “extreme vetting” process for individuals coming into the U.S. to ensure they held American values and did not support “Sharia law,” Trump wrote in the op-ed: “I oppose government interference with all Americans’ rights to freedom of religion and speech, which are guaranteed by the First Amendment in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.”
“I will appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who respect the right of all Americans to practice their religion not just in the privacy of their homes, but in the public square, in their professions and in the conduct of their businesses,” Trump wrote.
Trump has struggled with Mormon voters in Utah. The op-ed may be the most recent example of how Trump is trying to make up that gap. A recent Utah Policy poll revealed that Trump was still leading in the state, but Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson was surging. Hillary Clinton has also tried to make a play for voters in the state by publishing her own op-ed in the Deseret News where she accused Trump of not honoring the country’s history of religious freedom with his proposed Muslim ban.
