Zealotry

Aaron Hicklin writes at Out:

All minorities are acutely sensitive to being belittled and disparaged, and rightly so, but in the febrile world of the Web, it’s easy to take umbrage at every passing slight. We begin to care too much about whether our pasta is too conservative, or if a pizza maker will cater a hypothetical wedding in a state that until just recently didn’t even have marriage equality. We act like petty tyrants exploding in anger whenever someone says something that falls foul of approved policy.

Increasingly, of course, the targets of that anger are other LGBT people, because that is the way tyranny works…

The dismissive snark in the comments to Hicklin’s article on the Out site prove his point.

More. Of course there is and has forever been zealotry on the right, and the anti-gay right (and left) has had state power to use against LGBT people from time immemorial. Now, that’s shifting. The use of the term “zealatry” as applied to those who view themselves as progressives is intentional—why do you want to be like them? And targeting the small working-class vendor with religious-based qualms about gay marriage, with all the rage built up against the forces of intolerance and persecution, is sheer scapegoating. And its ugly. And those who spur on the mob and participate themselves should be ashamed. You are not the force of progressive light; you, too, have a shadow-side. Confront it.

Furthermore. The case of The Tolerant Jeweler Who Harbored an Impure Opinion of Same-Sex Marriage. Also noted by Rod Dreher here:

This Christian jeweler agreed to custom-make engagement rings for a lesbian couple, knowing that they were a couple, and treated them politely. But when they found out what he really believed about same-sex marriage, even though the man gave them polite service, and agreed to sell them what they asked for, the lesbian couple balked, and demanded their money back — and the mob threatened the business if they didn’t yield. Which, of course, he did.

And yes, Dreher is no supporter of gay rights. But our media advocates don’t report on this, do they? Wouldn’t make their readers feel all warm and superior and full of self-righteousness.

Post-Marriage Battles Loom

LGBT activists are saying that after (hopefully) the freedom to marry throughout the U.S. is recognized by the Supreme Court, other battles await. For many, the fight for strong anti-discrimination protections looms large; for some, it’s the perennial goal of even more closely embedding LGBT activism within the broader progressive agenda of redistribution and regulation.

But as the Washington Post reports, evangelical and Catholic religious groups, including charities and universities, fear that they will find themselves targeted in the battles ahead:

Leaders of religious institutions, including colleges, hospitals and nonprofits, are waiting to see how the case might affect issues like accreditation, government funding and tax exemption. Organizations have worked on issues related to poverty for the past 50 to 100 years, including Catholic Charities and World Vision, receive government aid for their services, aid that some fear could be challenged….

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an evangelical campus ministry, which has corralled hundreds of thousands of students to work on issues such as poverty, was denied recognition on several California campuses because of it did not sign a nondiscrimination statement.

“Setting aside the overblown rhetoric in all directions, there does seem to be a real difference for the framing of ‘religious liberty and the American culture wars’ when the battle lines move from issues like school prayer and vouchers—or even cake bakers and florists—to questions of whether religious student groups can be on public university campuses, whether religious colleges should be accredited, and whether local school systems should accept volunteer support from churches and ministries,” [John Inazu of Washington University School of Law] said.

The hope that we might achieve legal equality under the law, including the right to marry, but that no one should be forced by the state to provide services or otherwise participate in same-sex marriages, and that religious groups might be afforded reasonable tolerance to abide by their own traditions, is likely not going to happen. Zealots on both sides have too much invested in maintaining the culture wars.

Rearguard Actions

Leading up to and after a Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality, we can expect to see more last-ditch actions such as those aimed at forbidding county clerks from issuing same-sex marriage licenses, which could be passed in Texas and in the deep South, until federal courts put these efforts asunder.

We’d be in a stronger position to oppose these efforts to enshrine discrimination by the state if certain quarters weren’t using the power of the state, where they are in control, to force private vendors to provide services to same-sex weddings (the comments to the Dallas Morning News story contain many claims that it’s LGBT people who are the ones being intolerant, provoking responses claiming that our intolerance is justified intolerance while your intolerance is just intolerance…or whatever).

On a related front, CNN.com looks at the schism between Christian conservatives and big business over defense of religious freedom laws. Then again, the populist right and its counterpart, the progressive left, have never really looked kindly on big business anyway.

More. The debate over whether independent vendors with religious views opposed to participating in same-sex weddings should be forced by the state to do so gets confused, often deliberately by the right, with a related but different issue: whether civil servants should be able to opt out of performing same-sex marriages. As I posted last month:

…here I think the answer has to be no. There is a key difference between private, self-employed citizens who don’t want to provide creative services to same-sex weddings, and servants of the state.

While some of my friends on the left seem to think everyone is essentially (or should be) treated as a servant of the state, that’s actually not the American way, and shouldn’t be.

But, on the other hand, if government officials can’t perform their duty to treat all citizens equally, citing their own religious convictions, then they should step aside. Separation of church and state is also the American way.

Counterculture

Sure to drive LGBT progressives to new heights of frenzy, A Fox News Contributor on Being Gay, the GOP, and Religious Liberty (via BuzzFeed). Media Matters, save us!

Guy Benson’s new book, co-authored with fellow Fox contributor Mary Katharine Ham, is End of Discussion: How the Left’s Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun). As BuzzFeed puts it:

The book will be published as the debate over religious liberty protections continues to dominate the presidential conversation around gay issues, something that Benson and Ham are aware of and tackle in the book. (The chapter of the book in which Benson comes out is titled, “Bake Me a Cake, Bigots.”)

Many conservatives have argued there must be a legal process for exemption from laws on the basis of religious belief. For his part, Benson argued that exact space between existence and participation is what has helped accelerate acceptance for marriages. The idea that same-sex couples’ marriages wouldn’t affect straight couples’ marriages was “a very effective argument that won over a lot of people,” he said.

“I’m for civil marriage, I’m for nondiscrimination laws — but I think there should be broad carve-outs for religious organizations, in particular, and narrow carve-outs for closely held businesses that serve the wedding industry,” he said.

Defending freedom of conscience and the right not to be compelled to act in ways that violate religious faith, once liberal values, now signal that you’re a reactionary.

More. Benson is interviewed by Megyn Kelly, here, and says:

I just want to acknowledge quickly that I recognize that I am so fortunate to live in a country and an era where we can be having this exact conversation on national television, and I recognize that a lot of that is due to the fact that I’m standing on the shoulders of people who worked very hard for a very long time, who probably don’t share my political persuasions. …

But I think when that crosses some threshold into punishing and purging dissenters and trying to exact punishments on people for not agreeing, that is not what we should be about in this country. I think we’re better than that in this country.

As to the charge that he’s just a Fox News lackey, during the 2012 Romney campaign Benson took social conservatives to task for opposing Romney’s appointment of an openly gay man, Richard Grenell, to be his spokesman on national security and foreign policy issues (Grenell, alas, resigned shortly afterward when Romney failed to stand up for him.).

Marriage Amendment Is Wrong, Defending Religious Freedom Isn’t

In the wake of the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments on same-sex marriage, Gov. Scott Walker, who seemed for a while to have accepted marriage equality in Wisconsin as the law so let’s move on, shifted ground and joined Ted Cruz in endorsing a constitutional amendment that would stop federal judges from finding a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

“My hope is that the U.S. Supreme Court will [not rule in favor of same-sex marriage],” Walker said. “If they don’t, the only other viable option out there is to support a constitutional amendment which I would [support] believing not just in marriage being defined as one man, one woman, but I also believe in states rights. I believe that is an issue that appropriately belongs in the states.”

Endorsing amending the U.S. Constitution to stop marriage equality will put Walker beyond the political pale for center-right, libertarian-leaning Republicans and independents, without whom no Republican can win the general election. It’s not just morally wrong, it’s bad politics.

Progressives, however, are also expressing opprobrium toward Jeb Bush for noting concern that same-sex marriage might lead to forcing conservative clergy to perform same-sex marriages. Bush’s fear, dismissed flippantly by his critics, would have less credence if they hadn’t already been justified by a highly publicized instance of liberal officials trying to do this in the name of anti-discrimination (arguing that if ordained clergy run a wedding chapel instead of a church, they are subordinate to the state). That case fell apart, but not for want of trying.

And there was also this exchange during last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments, in which U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli suggested that a private, religiously affiliated college could lose it’s tax-exempt status for not supporting same-sex marriage:

JUSTICE ALITO: Well,in the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to tax¬exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage or interracial dating. So would the same apply to a university or a college if it opposed same-sex marriage?

GENERALVERRILLI: You know, I — I don’t think I can answer that question without knowing more specifics, but it’s certainly going to be an issue. I — I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is — it is going to be an issue.

As the Washington Blade reported, Bush also alluded to the cases of religiously conservative florists, caterers, and bakers being prosecuted for declining to provide services to same-sex weddings:

for Bush, finding “common ground” between opponents of same-sex marriage and gay and lesbian people seeking to marry is key. I think a country as open and big and tolerant and as this country ought to be able to find common ground on both of those fronts,” Bush said.

But the zealots of left and right won’t have any part of that.

More. From our comments, “Mary” writes, pertinently:

In all fairness, if 10 years ago someone had said that equal rights for gays would lead to a photographer being sued for not wanting to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony wouldn’t you have called this a scare tactic? And when people argued that bakers, florists, and reception hall owners would have to cater to gay weddings or be sued for discrimination because “equal means equal” wasn’t it said that no one would be forced to have anything to do with gay weddings if they didn’t want to?

So why should we assume that tax exemption would never be removed from churches that don’t marry gay couples? Although I support SSM now, I do believe we need specific laws to protect religious freedom.

Indeed. And Hubert Humphrey famously said “I’ll eat my hat if this [the Civil Rights Act] leads to racial quotas.” One can today argue the merits of affirmative action race-based preferences and quotas, but they certainly did come about (with hard quotas, at least, subsequently scaled back by Supreme Court rulings).

Liberty and Religious Accommodation

James Kirchick asks whether religious-based opposition to same-sex marriage, or specifically, to providing services to a same-sex wedding, is always bigotry, as some blithely assert. He writes:

One reason [New York’s Marriage Equality Act] passed is that the act included a provision that prohibits state courts from penalizing religious institutions for refusing to recognize or sanctify gay marriages or providing services to same-sex weddings.

Should this protection be extended to closely held for-profit family businesses when New Yorkers use them to exercise their religious views? “Yes,” the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to say in the Hobby Lobby case, although that dealt with birth control.

The justices may someday be asked to extend Hobby Lobby to small businesses being pressed on same-sex weddings. In rejecting the idea that a ban on same-sex marriage can be only about prejudice, New York’s high court offered a template.

It led to gay marriage here while protecting religion.

But if you dismiss faith-based opposition to same-sex marriage as “bigotry,” than there is no room for accommodating the small number of service providers who, citing religious convictions, wish not to be forcibly coerced into facilitating same-sex weddings. In this situation, if you look at who is acting like the Grand Inquisitors, it’s not the service providers.

More. Hatefully humorous, and a sign (among many) of the backlash that seems to be brewing and which certain activists seem intent on courting (and no doubt would profit from, in several senses).

As many are coming to realize, with military service and marriage equality won (or nearly so), the fundraising machine needs new enemies. So rev up the culture war against religious dissenters.

Related:

Parody:

“Either you have three friends who are LGBTQ or you pay a penalty equal to the ObamaCare penalty, proportionate to your income. So, if you fail to have ObamaCare and fail to have enough LGBTQ friends, you could pay the ObamaCare.”

Not a parody:

Republican legislators banned from Fargo coffee shop “Unless accompanied by a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual, queer, intersex or asexual person.”

An Overreaction to an Overreaction

This post was subsequently updated through April, 5, 2015

The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act was originally slightly broader than the federal RFRA, which some circuits have limited to apply only to federal laws (Josh Blackman provided a legal analysis here; CNN also had a balanced overview).

Indiana’s measure would, apparently, have allowed bakers and photographers to assert in their defense, if they found themselves in court being sued, a right to religious conscience—although it was by no means an automatic “get out of baking a cake” card. Blackman concluded:

I should stress–and this point was totally lost in the Indiana debate–that RFRA does not provide immunity. It only allows a defendant to raise a defense, which a finder of fact must consider, like any other defense that can be raised under Title VII or the ADA. RFRA is *not* a blank check to discriminate.

According to CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, it’s likely that a refusal to serve a gay person wouldn’t have stood under the law, but a refusal to provide a service for a gay wedding could have.

In fact, Indiana was the 20th state to adopt a “religious freedom restoration” law, and they have not opened the floodgates to anti-LGBT discrimination.

Indiana doesn’t have a statewide LGBT nondiscrimination law, although some of its cities and counties do. So it was not the grand compromise we saw in Utah. It’s passage was, arguably, an overreaction to an overreaction (the idea that it advances the progressive cause to find small business providers with religious-based objections and force them to provide expressive services to same-sex weddings or face prosecution because now it’s our turn and serves ’em right). But hey, never let an opportunity for lucrative political hysteria go untapped.

More. Yes, you can be a supporter for LGBT rights, same-sex marriage, and religious freedom. What you can’t be is an authoritarian statist and a defender of liberty.

No over-reaction by progressives and LGBT activists? Via the Washington Post: 19 states that have ‘religious freedom’ laws like Indiana’s that no one is boycotting.

Furthermore. Via Instapundit Glenn Reynolds:

Here’s the deal: (1) Indiana has gone from a swing state to a red state, so it’s fair game; and (2) Dems need something to agitate the base so it doesn’t pay attention to Iranian nukes, trashed email servers, and an overall culture of corruption. Those who join in are willing enablers.

Sounds about right. I’d add that with the fight for the freedom to marry just about won (assuming the Supreme Court does the right thing), activists are in dire need of new targets for their fundraising machines, and turning the tables on religious traditionalists is just the ticket.

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael Tanner blogs:

So, as a strong supporter of marriage equality and someone opposed to bigotry in all its forms, but also as a supporter of property rights and the freedom to associate (or not associate), how do I feel about Indiana’s new religious freedom law? The truth, not surprisingly, is that I’m somewhat torn. …

In the end, I think much of the commentary around Indiana’s law has been overly hysterical. That said, I would have voted “no.”

And another interesting post from the blog Bleeding Heart Libertarians:

As to private-sector discrimination, I’m of the view that private businesses should be free to refuse customers, subject to two categories of exceptions: (a) if the firms are common carriers or (in the common law sense) public accommodations rather than ordinary private retailers and (b) in the United States, due to the constitutional and historical distinctiveness of Jim Crow and its melding of public and private discrimination, discrimination on the basis of race. I think the trend to treat bans on private-sector discrimination outside of public accommodations and common carriers as the rule, rather than a unique exception demanded by the unique shape of Jim Crow, has been a serious mistake.

I’m not endorsing all the ideas in any of these posts, but they are examples of level-headed commentary of the kind you get outside the lockstep authoritarians of left and right.

Also, I like this comment left at Instapundit: “If I read this correctly, it has the effect of making [same-sex] weddings slightly less complicated. A wedding means fifty things to do, half of which are surprises. It’s a lot of stress. Now, because it would be useless, it is no longer necessary to spend time and effort prospecting for the most devout Christian baker or florist in a hundred miles. Saves that, anyway.” Indeed, one less thing.

Finally, from our own comments, Jorge observes:

[The] argument that this law only applies to gays is not credible. Having established that, we all know that the motivation is really about gay marriage. And you know what? That’s fine. Look, whether people agree with this or not, there is a social problem in this country about gays filing lawsuits against people who don’t want to participate in their weddings. Solving this problem puts states in a catch-22. If you pass a law that only applies to gays, that’s illegal discrimination. So it becomes necessary to create a law that serves the public good in a way that’s not discriminatory. Now people are saying they don’t like that law either. That’s just too bad. There is going to be law that solves the problem.

Is this problem ubiquitous? No. But have a number of small business providers in various states been sued by local authorities at the bequest of angry LGBT authoritarians and found themselves deep in debt and driven out of business for the “crime” of turning down gigs to provide creative services for same-sex weddings, which they feel would violate their religious faith, while self-righteous progressives clap and cheer? Yes.

David Brooks also gets it absolutely right:

The opponents [of Indiana’s statute] seem to be saying there is no valid tension between religious pluralism and equality. Claims of religious liberty are covers for anti-gay bigotry.

This deviation seems unwise both as a matter of pragmatics and as a matter of principle. In the first place, if there is no attempt to balance religious liberty and civil rights, the cause of gay rights will be associated with coercion, not liberation. Some people have lost their jobs for expressing opposition to gay marriage. There are too many stories like the Oregon bakery that may have to pay a $150,000 fine because it preferred not to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony. A movement that stands for tolerance does not want to be on the side of a government that compels a photographer who is an evangelical Christian to shoot a same-sex wedding that he would rather avoid.

And yet that’s exactly what LGBT authoritarians want and envision, and they have no shame about it, either.

Let’s keep it going. Viewpoints on the right that are still worth considering (oh no, he’s linked to websites WE DON’T Like!!!): Kevin D. Williamson on corporate cowardice:

There are three problems with rewarding those who use accusations of bigotry as a political cudgel. First, those who seek to protect religious liberties are not bigots, and going along with false accusations that they are makes one a party to a lie. Second, it is an excellent way to lose political contests, since there is almost nothing — up to and including requiring algebra classes — that the Left will not denounce as bigotry. Third, and related, it encourages those who cynically deploy accusations of bigotry for their own political ends.

More than a little truth here. And related, George Will on Tim Cook’s hypocrisy, with this added observation:

There are two important principles at stake here. One is the government should rarely, and only at extreme difficulty, compel people to take actions contrary to their consciences. The other is that when you open your doors to commerce you open them to everybody. That’s a simple thing. It goes back to the ’64 Civil Rights act, public accommodations section which is surely a great moment in American history. So, you kind of work this out, but the indignation isn’t helping.

But for the fundraisers, party hacks and others with self-serving (or marketing) agendas, fueling polarization is the very point.

Actually, it’s way beyond simply stoking polarization; it’s about inciting mob violence now.

Conor Friedersdorf asks: Should Mom-and-Pops that Forgo Gay Weddings Be Destroyed? Well, we know what LGBT progressives would answer.

Friedersdorf writes:

I also believe that the position I’ll gladly serve any gay customers but I feel my faith compels me to refrain from catering a gay wedding is less hateful or intolerant than let’s go burn that family’s business to the ground.

(Check out the hateful comments when HuffPost Gay Voices ran its hatchet job on Memories Pizza.)

End Game: Capitulation to the mob. Small vendors in Indiana and elsewhere will be driven out of business unless they agree to provide creative services to same-sex weddings. What the authoritarians of the politically correct left won’t tell you is that ever constriction on liberty can come around and smack you in the face. First they came for the conservative Christians….

The College-Based Anti-Free-Speech Movement

We are witnessing the rise of a generation of authoritarian student activists who define ideas they disagree with as “violence” that must be suppressed, distorting federal civil rights statutes (with the complicitness of like-minded enforcement bureaucrats) to pressure university administrators to capitulate. Sad but not unexpected to see some college LGBT activists are part of the Zeitgeist.

Similarly, via Reason:

Also recently, the student government at The George Washington University approved a measure requiring student leaders to attend LGBT sensitivity training regarding, inter alia, “using proper gender pronouns.” A conservative student group, the Young America’s Foundation chapter at GW, declined to go along. YAF treats everyone with respect, said representative Amanda Robbins, and doesn’t need to be lectured on how to do so.

You can imagine how well that went over. The campus LGBT group, Allied in Pride, responded that YAF’s “refusal to use preferred gender pronouns should be considered an act of violence.”

More. Made up? From Allied for Pride’s facebook page:

If GW YAF refuses to participate in safe zone trainings that are aimed at increasing safety and understanding, then they should be considered a hate group, and thereby, be revoked of all funding from the Student Association at The George Washington University (SA). . . . And their refusal to use preferred gender pronouns should be considered an act of violence and a violation of the non-discrimination clause required in all GW student organizations’ Constitutions.

Furthermore Reminiscent of when Dan Savage engaged in “hate speech” at the University of Chicago.

And still more. Not a joke: “UK students union passes policy banning gay white men from acting like black women.” And this lunacy is being advocated on U.S. campuses as well.

Frank Disdain

I don’t agree with former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank on his regulatory state policy objectives (Dodd-Frank has been an anchor around the economy, particularly for startups, while a goldmine for compliance lawyers). But in terms of tactical assessments, he has some interesting observations in his new memoir, as reviewed by the New York Times. Some excerpts from the review:

[Frank’s] chief motivation in writing this book appears to be using his experience in public life to argue that the democratic process, though imperfect and given to incremental gains, is a more effective tool for social change than the protests and provocations often favored by the left. …

In 1993, during the debate about gays serving in the military, Mr. Frank participated in a large Washington demonstration for gay rights and relates that he prevented what he says would have been a “disaster.” He eyed a group of about nine or 10 gay uniformed soldiers practicing a leg-kick routine they were to perform on the stage during the televised rally.

“Nothing could have been more devastating to our argument that L.G.B.T. people would blend comfortably into the military than a photo—or worse a video—of these guys lined up not to march but to emulate the Rockettes,” he writes.

Mr. Frank convinced them not to do it and endured their anger—which, he notes, he would often face when urging strategic or tactical restraint with gay rights groups or individuals.

But he vociferously contends that his approach was more effective, and holds up the disciplined and orderly 1963 March on Washington for civil rights as a comparison. “The contrast between that great sober, moving occasion and the antics at our march [in 1993] could not have been greater,” he writes, recalling that one lesbian comedian had said onstage she would like to have sex with Hillary Clinton, then the first lady (using a more expressive four-letter verb). “If a black comedian had begun to joke about having sex with Jackie Kennedy, he would have been thrown in the reflecting pool, not cheered.”

The activists would respond that their militancy lit a fire under the politicos, and there are some narrow examples where that seems true (Act-Up and the FDA). But in general, Frank has a point—up to a point. The national “marches” (in 1979, 1987, 1993, 2000, and 2009) failed to achieve their primary goal (Democrats didn’t move a federal anti-discrimination bill during the times when they controlled Congress during both the Clinton and Obama administrations). Creating “community” and fostering solidarity, often mentioned as vital secondary objectives of these mass mobilizations, are harder to quantify, so that debate will go on.

And yet….What is grating about Frank’s critique is his default supposition that it should be left to inside-the-Beltway politicians to deliver gay legal equality. That’s on par with his default supposition that everything is best left to our liberal-elite Washington betters to handle. It’s (almost) condescending enough to make one side with the militants.

More. As for remembrance of things past, friends who were at the first march in 1979 tell me it was personally transforming. I was there in 1987 and found it inspirational and energizing. But by 1993, the attempt seemed more like politically correct ritual (maybe my consciousness of such things was better attuned), and I skipped the others and watched on C-SPAN, where they appeared to be progressively worse in that regard.

It’s worth noting that these were the goals stated in 1979:

–Pass a comprehensive lesbian/gay rights bill in Congress.
–Issue a presidential executive order banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal government, the military, and federally contracted private employment.
–Repeal all anti-lesbian/gay laws.
–End discrimination in lesbian-mother and gay-father custody cases.
–Protect lesbian and gay youth from any laws which are used to discriminate, oppress, and/or harass them in their homes, schools, jobs, and social environments.

The top goal was never achieved (and I remain equivocal about it), while an executive order banning discrimination among federal contractors was finally obtained last year (although Obama had promised it when seeking LGBT votes in 2008).

A tangent: In the cultural sphere (a least in terms of popular media and audience response), progress is undeniable, as “The Fosters” on ABC Family showed with a recent episode where two 13 year-old boys kiss. Yahooo Entertainment says this marks “the youngest gay kiss in television history.” And “while there was undoubtedly a slew of angry, hateful tweets—unfortunately, that’s nothing new for a show revolving around an interracial lesbian couple and their five biological, adopted, and foster children—the overall reaction has been positive,” the network reports.

For those of us who can recall the controversy and advertiser boycott over “thirtysomething” in 1989, it’s a much changed media world, reflecting a much changed actual world. Washington seems to be the behind the times outlier, to be remedied to a great extent if the Supreme Court does the right thing in June.

Utah’s Anti-Discrimination Compromise

Utah is moving forward with an LGBT anti-discrimination and religious freedom measure, for which both local LGBT political groups and the Mormon church provided input and have announced their support. The text of the bill is here. As the AP reports:

At a news conference where Utah senators and LGBT-rights activists joined high-ranking leaders of the Mormon church, officials touted the measure as a model for the rest of the country and history-making for Utah.

The legislation, which includes transgender protections, covers employment and housing discrimination but not public accommodations, which could indicate how strong-arming cake bakers and photographers has played out. It also exempts religious organizations [as well as] the Boy Scouts, and includes job protection for employees who voice moral or political views about marriage or sexuality “in a reasonable, non-disruptive, and non-harassing way.”

Nationally, the LGBT left and religious right will be against it. And given many LBGT activists’ opposition to exempting religious organizations, such a deal isn’t likely in future federal legislation. But in red states that currently don’t have LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination provisions, it could be a way forward.

Are the compromises worth it to secure employment and housing protections? Jonathan Rauch and the Brookings Institute will be exploring that topic in an upcoming forum.

More. LGBTQ Task Force leader Rea Carey recently reiterated her group’s opposition to exemptions for religious organizations in the proposed Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), declaring:

…on July 8th, we pulled our support for the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. We simply had come way too far to compromise on such a fundamental principal of fairness and federal equality in the workplace. Instead we redoubled our work for what we really need—strong federal non-discrimination legislation without broad exemptions. I’m happy to report that our opposition, and that of other organizations, worked.

As I noted in an earlier post, “Well, it worked in terms of killing ENDA.”

The following LGBT groups, among others, also withdraw their support for ENDA over its exemption for religious organizations: Lambda Legal; Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders; National Center for Lesbian Rights; and Transgender Law Center.

Moreover, Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said he shares “grave concerns” over the religious exemption.

In the decades before 2013, exempting religious organizations from LGBT anti-discrimination statutes was a consensus position. Now, on the federal level, it’s anathema for many national LGBT rights advocates.

And on the local level, ferreting out self-employed service providers who have conscience objections to performing expressive services for same-sex weddings, and using the state to prosecute them for refusing these gigs, is the new activist front for “equality.”

Furthermore. Jonathan Rauch writes that while the Human Rights Campaign lauded the deal:

…one-sided “religious freedom” laws sought (and sometimes passed) by religious conservatives in other states have deepened suspicion in the LGBT world that religious accommodations are intended as a “license to discriminate.” Some LGBT folks now view any such accommodations as a poison pill. That view did not prevail in Utah, whose example suggests that good-faith negotiations and a tangible upside can still attract gay support for compromise.

Update. Passed by Utah’s Republican-controlled House and Senate, and signed into law by GOP Governor Gary Herbert.

Final word. In his Wall Street Journal column (“Utah Shows the Way on Gay Rights”), William A. Galston writes:

By overwhelming majorities, the state legislature adopted a pair of bills that banned discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender individuals in employment and housing while carving out accommodations for individuals and institutions with conscience-based objections to these measures. Individual local officials who object to same-sex marriage are not required to preside over such ceremonies, for example, but each local office is responsible for doing so.

… Neither side allowed the best to become the enemy of the good. Both came to see that protections for LGBT individuals and for religious conscience needed to be enacted simultaneously, as a package.