Proposed legislation that would exempt religious nonprofit organizations from an Obama executive order requiring government contractors to follow LGBT nondiscrimination policies is on hold, but the ACLU and its allies are gearing up for battle on behalf of forcing Catholic charities to facilitate adoptions by same-sex couples because, you know, Jim Crow.
As the Wall Street Journal reports:
“What you’ve seen since the election is people see this as a line-in-the-sand moment,” said Ian Thompson, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union. “This is an opportunity to really say, ‘No, we’re not going to allow our taxpayer dollars to be used to fund discrimination and target vulnerable communities across the country.’ ”
Supporters say the exemptions are needed to protect religious groups who help the government through their work with veterans, refugees, the homeless and others. In some cases, religious groups may be the only ones offering those services, they say.
A more-constructive progressive/LGBT movement would see the value of allowing exemptions for religious nonprofits in that the advocates would still get 95% of what they want—the government on record outlawing sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination by contractors—while showing some flexibility for services provided by faith-based groups. But no dice.
It’s possible soon-to-be-president Trump will rescind the order and/or replace it with a version that includes an exemption for religious groups. If he does so, or if he doesn’t and Congress moves ahead with its measure, progressive activists will fight it tooth and nail, because all or nothing serves their mobilization/fundraising agenda.
That’s also why activists will never allow any LGBT anti-discrimination bill to move forward if it includes exemptions for faith-based groups, even though Trump might be willing to sign such a measure. But having Trump sign an LGBT anti-discrimination law would be progressives’ worst nightmare, and they will do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening.
13 Comments for “Religious Exemptions: Just Like Segregation?”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
It’s possible soon-to-be-president Trump will rescind the order and/or replace it with a version that includes an exemption for religious groups.
My guess is that he will rescind the EO along with all the other EOs granting non-discrimination protection to gays and lesbians, and not replacing them. I guess we’ll see soon enough.
posted by Chris Cox on
‘progressive activists will fight it tooth and nail, because all or nothing serves their mobilization/fundraising agenda.
‘That’s also why activists will never allow any LGBT anti-discrimination bill to move forward if it includes exemptions for faith-based groups”
No, the reason we don’t support such exemptions is that such exemptions render the law toothless. Nearly anyone who cares to discriminate us has a religion, and the majority of religions sanction discrimination against us.
posted by JohnInCA on
When these “religious exemptions” include the ability to discriminate against Mormons and Catholics, I’ll be interested.
Until then, it’s just more of the same: “Do unto others as you would legally prohibit them doing unto you.”
posted by Throbert McGee on
“Us” who? ALL gay people, or gay people who are violating the laws of the particular church that they belong to? The distinction is such an important one that ignoring it seems like a lie of omission.
I recall a few years ago that the Advocate — or maybe it was the Washington Blade — published a story with headline “25 Shocking Cases of LGBT People Fired Just for Being LGBT In the Past Year Alone!!”
Reading past the headline, however, one learned that of the 25 cases, something like 22 involved Catholic teachers at Catholic schools who came out in a manner public enough to be in violation of their contractual obligation to avoid challenging Church teachings.
You may object, “But some of the people denied wedding cakes by Christian bakers were not necessarily members of the baker’s church, or even Christians of any stripe.”
That’s true, but it’s no mystery to me why a Christian baker would be wary of any legal precedents that *eventually* forced them to be “accommodating” towards a Heretic from their own church.
posted by Doug on
First, the wedding cake was not being done by a Christian baker but my a baker who happened to be Christian. There is a big difference. If the are just ‘bakers’ they have to serve everyone. If they advertise as a Christian baker that only serves Christians then they may have a case.
posted by Throbert McGee on
They’re not “just bakers”; they’re skilled cake-decorators offering customized designs.
But leaving that point aside: Why should they “have to serve everyone”?
And don’t be lazy and say “because that’s what the law says in this or that state”; Tell me why the baker is obliged to serve a customer in any case.
Tell me why it’s so wrong, so immoral for a business owner to refuse service to a customer “just because the customer is gay”, that the state is justified in stepping in to “legislate morality.”
posted by Doug on
It is called discrimination.
posted by JohnInCA on
“Tell me why it’s so wrong, so immoral for a business owner to refuse service to a customer “just because the customer is gay”, that the state is justified in stepping in to “legislate morality.””
Golden Rule, “Eye for an eye”, and so-on.
If I am prohibited from citing their God’s grudge against gays when I kick them out of my shop? Then they shouldn’t be able to cite their God’s grudge against gays when they kick me out of their shop.
If it’s so important to them to be able to eject me, then they should accept the risk of being ejected.
Or to put it plainly: non-discrimination laws for both of us or neither, but this halfsies bullshit has got to go.
posted by JohnInCA on
“That’s true, but it’s no mystery to me why a Christian baker would be wary of any legal precedents that *eventually* forced them to be “accommodating” towards a Heretic from their own church.”
That’s some nice arm-chair theorizing, but we actually have it on the record from these people why they did what they did.
Some abstract fear of a “heretic from their own church”? Has never been mentioned. We’ve had “because God hates fags”, “beliefs about marriage”, “normalizing blah blah blah”.
In short: if you have to make-up fake motivations for these people, isn’t that an admission that their actual motivations are shit?
posted by Throbert McGee on
Oh yes it has. See my point above about gay Catholic teachers fired from positions in Catholic parochial schools.
Also, you attribute “God hates fags” to the Christian bakers, and you accuse me of making up fake motivations? Shame on you, white-belt.
posted by JohnInCA on
Yeah, it’s almost like I’m uncharitably summarizing or something. But tell you what. Every single one of these “gay wedding cake” cases have gone to court, where the defendant tried to excuse themselves. You dig up one where they whined about hypothetical heretics, and I’ll dig up one where they expressed animosity.
That said, of you had actually read those various articles about employment discrimination, you would have picked up on the theme: the school’s didn’t care about whoever being gay, they just got embarrassed when the parents found out. Which has the same problems that DADT had. If a gay choir director is good enough when it’s only other staff and faculty that know, but is suddenly an issue when a snooping parent find out, your religious beliefs against whatever clearly aren’t the motivation behind the firing. Oh they were, they’d have been fired already.
posted by Throbert McGee on
SO EFFING WHAT. You say “It is called discrimination,” and what I hear is “It is called blasphemy against the crocodile-headed river god Offal.”
Now, that said, I agree with JohninCA’s point that any “religious exemption” clauses MUST work in both directions — the rights of a Reform Jewish gay baker to say “I don’t want to make a Jesus Says That Marriage Means One Man, One Woman cake for your Traditional Values Coalition dinner gala” must also be respected, along with the rights of an Evangelical Christian baker to say “Sorry, I don’t want to bake a gay wedding cake.”
I also agree that LGBT activists are wise to scrutinize any proposed “religious exemptions” very, very closely, to make sure that they aren’t overly broad permission to “discriminate if you happen to feel like it.”
But if you insist that any sort of religious exemptions would make the anti-discrimination laws “toothless,” you might as well come clean and admit that you’re not really interested in protecting LGBT people; you’re interested in generating scare-donations to the Democratic candidate in future election cycles.
posted by Throbert McGee on
D’oh! May the crocodile-headed river god Offler have mercy on me for the misspelling!