Any schoolchild in the United States knows that the US Declaration of Independence guarantees individuals’ rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

Now, imagine what these principles mean for right-wingers and religious fundamentalists: where “life” refers to fetuses; “liberty” includes the prerogative to discriminate against LGBTIQ people; and “the pursuit of happiness” is reserved for straight, white patriarchs.

For more nightmare fuel, look no further than the new government body that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced earlier this month: The Commission on Unalienable Rights. For the uninitiated: this project’s name might sound progressive, but it’s most definitely not.

Everything we’ve heard about this Commission is full of coded language that’s about as subtle as a brick through a window. This isn’t business as usual – even for the Trump administration. It represents an acceleration of a longstanding fundamentalist agenda.

According to its statement of intent, the Commission is needed as human rights “discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights”.