Readers of this blog know well that 2013, and the first month or so of 2014, have been quite good for gay rights, especially marriage equality rights.
As the saying goes, for every action, there’s an equal and opposite
reaction. I think none but the most self-deluded believed that
homophobic bigotry was dead, or that the bad guys would simply sit back
and let gay people have lives of happiness and equality.
In the past few weeks there’s been an eruption of anti-gay measures in
state legislatures across the country. And it’s not a coincidence.
Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah have seen efforts — always introduced by Republicans, mind you –
to pass laws they claim are to “protect” the free exercise of religion.
(I was going to say “radical conservative fundamentalist Republicans” —
but I’d be repeating myself.)
From Mother Jones:
Republicans lawmakers and a network of conservative religious groups has been pushing similar bills in other states, essentially forging a national campaign that, critics say, would legalize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Republicans in Idaho, Oregon, South Dakota, and Tennessee recently introduced provisions that mimic the Kansas legislation. And Arizona, Hawaii, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Mississippi have introduced broader “religious freedom” bills with a unique provision that would also allow people to deny services or employment to LGBT Americans, legal experts say.
Some of them, such as the proposals in Nevada and Ohio last year and the new one in South Dakota, came right out and specified that the reason was so conservative fundamentalists could discriminate against gays and lesbians. All three of these measures, by the way, appear to be dead.
The bills that have been under consideration now… oh boy. And there are a lot of them:
- January 16: Kansas, introduced by Republican state Representative Charles Macheers
- January 28: Idaho, by Rep. Lynn Luker (Republican, obviously)
- January 30: South Dakota, from a ‘coalition’ of Republican senators and representatives
- February 5: Tennessee, Rep. Bill Dunn (R) and Sen. Brian Kelsey (R), as well as other GOP co-sponsors
They just don’t stop at anti-gay bigotry
I’ll be honest here and admit I don’t know what the hell these
homophobic Republicans are thinking now though, because these newer
measures, all of which have similar language and rationales, state they
want to make it legal for people to discriminate on the basis of
religion.
Not ‘discriminate against gay people’ but simply ‘discriminate.’
And by the way, there’s a reason why the bills are all similar, often
with the same language and all promoted with the same homophobic
concern-trolling talking points. “Oh how horrible it is for that
poor baker to be FORCED to use her artistic skills to make a cake and
write, in buttercream frosting, ‘Best Wishes to Cindy and Eve on the
joyous day of their Wedding’! Oh the humanity!”
1. Expands the definition of exercise of religion to specifically include both the practice and observance of religion.
2. Expands the definition of person to include any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, estate, trust, foundation or other legal entity.
3. Changes the terminology within the prohibition of burdening a person’s exercise of religion to apply to state action instead of government.
4. Defines state action as any action by the government or the implementation or application of any law, including state and local laws, ordinances, rules, regulations and policies, whether statutory or otherwise, and whether the implementation or action is made or attempted to be made by the government or nongovernmental persons.
5. Specifies that a free exercise of religion claim or defense may be asserted in a judicial proceeding regardless of whether the government is a party to the proceeding.
Translation: Anybody who wishes to discriminate against someone for
any reason need only state it’s because it’s in their religious beliefs.
According to an earlier passage, it doesn’t even matter if that belief
is “compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief.”
For example, let’s say you’re a Catholic, and identify as such.
Catholicism has nothing in its tenets about racial discrimination.
Doesn’t matter — you can still discriminate against African Americans or
Hispanics if you feel like it, and say it’s because God’s Holy Trousers
told you to.
Shorter translation: The Arizona bill attempts to nullify all civil
rights legislation ever passed, including federal laws, regardless who
is being protected.
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