A Christian Oligarchy to Call Our Own

A Christian Oligarchy to Call Our Own
Over the past few months I have watched events in the LGBT community unfold with an increasing sense of unease. When I saw that Michael Signorile’s new book is entitled It’s Not Over: Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia, and Winning True Equality, it helped crystallize what I have been sensing. What I have been sensing isn’t one thing: It is a series of interconnected issues that paint a deeply troubling picture of where we as a country are headed on LGBT issues for the foreseeable future.

1. The Rise of Christian Theocracy

When George Orwell wrote “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” he was satirizing the Bolshevik revolution. Today, we are seeing a new, Americanized version of this: “All religious beliefs are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

Fifty-seven percent of Republicans want to establish Christianity as our national religion. Only 30 percent were opposed. Conservative Representative Sam Johnson (R-TX) in the U.S. Congress believes there is no right to “freedom from religion,” and has introduced legislation to require “So help me God,” in the military’s oath of office. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argued in an opinion last year that the Constitution favors religion over irreligion. Conservative hero and Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore believes the First Amendment only protects Christianity.

The kind of Christianity they want to protect isn’t the kinder, gentler version you’ll find in affirming churches. Those were long ago rendered moot in the cultural debate as apostates and outliers by the Christian right.

When Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced his candidacy for president at Liberty University, the message was clear: His is a candidacy on behalf of Evangelical Christians. Cruz’s father is very much a proponent of the idea that the United States was created by Christians to be a Christian nation. Polling reflects this: The Evangelicals Cruz is courting want all aspects of American life to be controlled by their Christian values. These values include an overt hostility to LGBT people.

Let there be no mistake: When Republicans are put in office, they have been put there by the people who want their brand Christianity to trump all other religious or secular outlooks, and they intend to make it so. More frightening is the fact that many of the corporate backers of these politicians want it too. Which brings us to:

2. Christian Oligarchy Is Ascendant

Several legal developments over the past few years are terrifying. With the Citizens United, the Supreme Court decided that businesses are people for the purposes of freedom of speech. With the Hobby Lobby case, corporations are people for the purposes of freedom of religion too. On top of this, last year researchers at Princeton University showed that the U.S. is already an oligarchy.

The disparity in power between a corporation and its employees is huge, and only widening. Now imagine they have both the ability to enforce their religious beliefs on its employees and control the government.

Only, you don’t have to imagine, because we’re already there. While fewer and fewer Americans identify with any given religion, a small sub-set of conservative religious ideas, people and businesses are being given greater and greater power over other Americans based solely on their religious beliefs.

Which is pretty much the definition of an oligarchy.

3. Special Religious Exemptions to Laws Enjoy Popular Support

Indiana has just passed the most sweeping Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) expansion to date, following in the footsteps of bastions of civil rights like Mississippi. Arkansas, Texas, and others are poised to do the same. What many people are missing in this law is that the RFRA explicitly acknowledges a right for corporations to discriminate.

Most voters probably do not realize these special religious exemptions to following the law, or even basic decency go far beyond simply florists or bakers: These RFRA expansions grant the right to deny virtually any service to anyone for any reason as long as there is a claim of religious belief behind it. This includes vital services including doctors and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs).

We are again a divided country, where over half the nation believes, and will have the right to say, “We don’t serve your kind here.” Worse yet, we have learned nothing from the legacy of the civil rights movement. Fifty-seven percent of Americans believe that businesses should have the right to deny goods and services to lesbians and gays.

Even if that right to deny of service ends up being EMTs who point, and laugh, and do nothing to save a transgender woman bleeding to death in the middle of the street.

4. This Isn’t Even Close to a Fair Fight

Christians are free to discriminate against LGBT people because we do not have much in the way of legal protections, and what little we have are being stripped away. Conversely, LGBT people and our allies cannot legally discriminate against our Christian tormentors. While religion is specifically protected by both the Constitution and the 1964 Civil Rights act, sexual orientation and gender identity do not enjoy any similar protections.

We are fighting this one with both hands tied behind our backs.

(While some argue that transgender people are fully protected by the 1964 Civil Rights Act under the classification of sex, it only actually works out that way if you’re a transgender person with the means to file a federal lawsuit, and living in a Circuit Court district with favorable controlling case law.)

5. We Won’t Be Gaining Those Federal Protections Anytime Soon

When the Employment Non-Discrimination Act spun in (again) last year because the religious exemptions were too large, what emerged was a proposal to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or to craft similar legislation from scratch. Such legislation will not happen, however.

LGBT people will not accept legislation with a religious exemption that allows fundamentalist Christians (and their businesses) to conveniently ignore everything in the bill. Republicans will not let such a bill pass without said exemptions. The composition of the House won’t change much (due to gerrymandering) until at least the 2022 election.

It doesn’t matter how well protections for LGBT people poll. Support for more thorough background checks on people who purchase guns consistently polls at about 90 percent, but it isn’t enough to actually get anything through Congress either.

6. This Is Part of a Coordinated Legislative Strategy

The Republican efforts represent a three pronged approach to making their parts of the U.S. as unlivable as possible for LGBT people without actually singling out LGBT people, and violating Romer v. Evans or Lawrence v. Texas. The first are RFRAs. The second is nullifying local non-discrimination ordinances at the state level. Finally, bathroom bills, are easily the most naked attempt at driving transgender people out of their respective states.

7. History Says We Won’t See the End of This in Our Lifetimes

There was a 99-year gap between the end of the Civil War and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Racism is still alive and well 51 years after that. Is there any reason to believe homophobia and transphobia will die any faster?

A more pressing question, though, is what sort of country will come from the rising of the Christian oligarchy we are witnessing today?

The Republic of Gilead comes to mind.

www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tannehill/a-christian-oligarchy-to-call-our-own_b_6950956.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Aaron Schock Bids Adieu To Congress, Fails Attempt At Humility By Comparing Himself To Lincoln

Aaron Schock Bids Adieu To Congress, Fails Attempt At Humility By Comparing Himself To Lincoln

aaron-schock-picnic-belt-photoAs producers of Downton Abbey announce the series is ending soon, it’s appropriate that so comes the much-anticipated finale to the Congressional career of one of its the biggest fans, Aaron Schock.

The 33-year-old Schock, a once fast-rising star in the GOP party who has recently endured enough controversy, scandal and innuendo to supply the writers of the British costume drama with plots for an entire season, will resign at the end of the month and delivered his farewell address to Congress today. Naturally, it didn’t go off without a hitch.

The former Men’s Health model implied that he intends to continue with public service. “I leave here with sadness and humility,” he said. “For those whom I’ve let down, I will work tirelessly to make it up to you.”

Then the other shoe dropped, as Schock compared the questions he’s faced over his lavish spending to the hardships faced by the nation’s 16th president.

“I also know that every person faces adversity in life,” Schock revealed. “Abraham Lincoln held this seat in Congress in one term. But few faced as many defeats in his personal, business and public life as he did. “His continual perseverance in the face of these trials — never giving up — is something all of us Americans should be inspired by, especially when going through a valley in life.”

Watch Schock’s peace out below.

Jeremy Kinser

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/YEGzAZ5jF6I/aaron-schock-bids-adieu-to-congress-fails-attempt-at-humility-by-comparing-himself-to-lincoln-20150326

Anti-Gay Hate Group Attorney: Texas Should Obey SCOTUS On Marriage, 'Depending On What It Is They Say'

Anti-Gay Hate Group Attorney: Texas Should Obey SCOTUS On Marriage, 'Depending On What It Is They Say'

Texas officials should comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on same-sex marriage “depending on what it is they say,” according to anti-gay attorney Jonathan Saenz. 

SaenzSaenz is the president of the anti-LGBT hate group Texas Values, whose ex-wife famously left him for a woman. He made the statement during a committee hearing Wednesday night on a bill that would bar state officials from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, or recognizing their unions, regardless of whether federal courts determine the ban is unconstitutional. 

Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner pressed Saenz, who testified in favor of the bill, about whether he was advocating that state officials ignore a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. 

“You do believe that if the United States Supreme Court rules that something is the law of the land, that those of us within the state of Texas, should follow the dictates and operate within the parameters of whatever the law is established by the Supreme Court,” Turner asked. 

“Depending on what it is they say, and that’s what I think is important,” Saenz responded. “We don’t have a law from the state of Texas that’s being challenged at the Supreme Court to where the Supreme Court will be directly telling us what to do as a state. It’s hard to predict what it is they’re going to do. Until we see a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, I think that’s when we decide what it is that Texas has to do from that point, and what options the state courts and our government has on that issue.” 

TurnerTurner, who’s black, explained to Saenz why he think it’s important for Texas to obey the Supreme Court. 

“I’m just very sensitive because I know based upon my own history and the history of those who look like me, that there have been many state laws that have worked against people’s interests, and it was when the Supreme Court stepped in that those laws … conflicted with the supreme law of the land,” Turner said. “So I think I would be very, very reticent to take a position that when the Supreme Court makes a ruling, whether we like it or not, that we then try to find ways to get around those laws, because history tells us that is not a good precedent.”  

The Texas Observer reports that Saenz was among dozens who testified for and against the bill during the nearly two-hour hearing, which you can watch in its entirety here beginning at 3:12:00 mark. 

The chairman of the committee eventually left the bill pending, meaning he may or may not call it back up for a vote later in the legislative session. 

Watch the clip of Saenz’s testimony, AFTER THE JUMP

 


John Wright

www.towleroad.com/2015/03/anti-gay-attorney-texas-should-obey-scotus-on-same-sex-marriage-depending-on-what-it-is-they-say.html