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Montana GOP Lawmakers Pass Discriminatory Anti-LGBTQ ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill

New Civil Rights Movement | April 7, 2021

Topics: Greg Gianforte, Human Rights Campaign, Montana, religious freedom, Religious Freedom Restoration Act

More states are getting on the “religious freedom as excuse for anti-LGBTQ discrimination” train, driven by their Republican state legislatures and governors. The latest to jump on board is Montana.

Lawmakers in the Montana House and Senate have passed a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” bill that will allow any person or business to discriminate against anyone for any reason if not doing so would violate their religious beliefs.

House Democrats supported an amendment that would not allow the law to be used to discriminate but Republicans refused to support it.

“Do not make me NOT do what my God tells me I have to do,” Republican Rep. John Fuller, opposing the amendment, said during Thursday’s debate, the AP reports.

“The LGBTQ community opposes the bill, arguing it could lead to challenges against ordinances in several cities that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression,” the AP adds. “The Montana Human Rights Act does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.”

The Human Rights Campaign says the bill is “similar” to the “religious freedom” bill then-Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed into law, causing nationwide outrage.

“This bill is so sweeping and so dangerous that under it, LGBTQ Montanans could be denied access to PREP and PEP and other life-saving medications by pharmacies,” HRC said via Twitter.

Under this bill, employers could defend against firing LGBTQ Montanans for being who they are.

— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) April 1, 2021

News outlets are falsely comparing the Montana legislation to the federal law of the same name. The federal law does not affix personhood status to corporations, organizations, or businesses, and does not directly support anti-LGBT discrimination – the Montana law does, stating:

“Person” means any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, religious institution, estate, trust, foundation, or other legal entity.

Democrats tried to stop the bill’s passage but were unsuccessful.

“This bill would allow a family therapist to refuse to help an unwed mother. It would allow a pharmacist to refuse to prescribe HIV medications or oral contraceptive pills,” said state Democratic Rep. Laurie Bishop, Montana Free Press reports. “I just ask you, that as you consider this legislation, that you’d not only think about that which you want to protect, I understand that, but rather, I ask you to consider how others might use this legislation in ways that you do not intend.”

Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte (photo) is expected to sign the bill into law.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Photo via NCRM.

Arkansas Governor Signs Pro-Religious Discrimination Bill Allowing Doctors to Refuse to Treat LGBTQ Patients

New Civil Rights Movement | March 31, 2021

Topics: anti-LGBTQ discrimination, anti-trans discrimination, Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, Kim Hammer, Medical Ethics & Diversity Act, religious freedom, Roe v. Wade

Late last week, Arkansas’s Governor signed into law the “Medical Ethics & Diversity Act,” which — in classic Republican doublespeak fashion — actually legalizes discrimination against LGBTQ patients for reason of “conscience.”

Arkansas Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson Friday afternoon signed into law a bill designed to give medical professionals, hospitals, insurance companies, and other medical providers – including students – legal protections to discriminate against LGBTQ patients while claiming they have a religious or moral right of “conscience” to do so. SB 289, the “Medical Ethics and Diversity Act,” is a sweeping law that could have devastating implications on the health and well-being of every LGBTQ person in the state.

SB 289 is sponsored by Republican state Senator Kim Hammer, a Missionary Baptist preacher and hospice pastor who earlier this year declared war on Democrats after then-President Donald Trump had been impeached.

As NCRM reported earlier, when Hutchinson’s “Medical Ethics and Diversity Act” goes into effect this summer a physician could refuse to treat a transgender person, a mental health professional could end treatment with a young teenager who just revealed to them he is gay, a pharmacist could refuse to dispense contraceptive medication even if prescribed for non-pregnancy-related illnesses, and a student nurse could refuse to assist with an abortion, even if it were medically necessary to save the life of a woman.

But that’s not all. The new law is so broad that it allows hospitals and even insurance companies to refuse service for – including refusing to pay for – anything their polices claim violates their conscience. Catholic hospitals for decades have been refusing to allow abortions to be performed, but now an insurance company could refuse to pay for HIV medications, or even PrEP. They could refuse to pay for gender confirmation surgery.

NEW: Gov. @AsaHutchinson has signed SB289 into law. The Medical Ethics & Diversity Act. Opponents argued it would allow health care providers to deny treatment to members of the LGBTQ based on religious beliefs. #arnews #arpx @KATVNews pic.twitter.com/piUoE10qAd

— Marine Glisovic KATV (@KATVMarine) March 26, 2021

Gov. Hutchinson signed the possibly unconstitutional legislation less than a day after signing another anti-LGBTQ bill into law, one that bans transgender girls and women from playing women’s sports.

Hutchinson, who is possibly considering a 2024 presidential run, is term limited and will be out of office after the 2022 election.

Last week the governor signed into law an anti-abortion bill he fully admits was designed to go to the Supreme Court in a far right wing effort to kill Roe v. Wade. Hutchinson back in 2015 signed into law an anti-LGBTQ “religious freedom” law he himself had called “divisive,” after having a small portion of the language changed. That same year Gov. Hutchinson allowed a bill prohibiting towns from enacting non-discrimination ordinances to become law.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via NCRM.

Ted Cruz Smacked Down by Dick Durbin After Lying About LGBTQ Equality Act and ‘Religious Liberty’

New Civil Rights Movement | March 12, 2021

Topics: Biden administration, Equality Act, religious freedom, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Ted Cruz, Vanita Gupta

During Vanita Gupta’s confirmation hearing to become Biden’s associate attorney general, Ted Cruz attempted to assert a misrepresentation of what the Equality Act does. Thankfully Democrat Dick Durbin wasn’t willing to allow it.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Tuesday apparently tried to make a soundbite speech for Fox News while falsely characterizing the LGBTQ Equality Act and its impact on “religious freedom.” Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) was not going to allow Cruz’s political grandstanding get in the way of an important confirmation hearing.

Cruz, under fire for months now over various scandals, including his role in the January 6 insurrection, has gone as far as doing a photo op showing him holding a case of bottled water after his Cancun excursion when he left millions of his constituents in the middle of a sub-freezing winter storm without power or water.

On Tuesday Cruz tried the “religious liberty” approach, attacking civil rights attorney and champion Vanita Gupta.

Gupta, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, is President Joe Biden’s nominee to be Associate Attorney General. Cruz falsely framed his question, trying to back Gupta into a difficult position while not letting her complete her answer.

“Do you agree with the provisions stripping RFRA’s religious liberty protections from Americans?” an argumentative Cruz asked Gupta.

The LGBTQ Equality Act does not “strip” the Religious Freedom Restoration Act’s religious liberty protections from Americans. What it does is say the law cannot be used as the basis for anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Cruz has attacked LGBTQ activists in year past, claiming they are waging “jihad” on Christians.

Gupta tried to answer and present her position. She did not get far.

“Senator, let me begin by saying that religious liberty is incredibly important to me. I am a person of faith. My family is one of deep and abiding faith. And this country’s founding freedom was rooted in religious liberty. I have defended religious freedom throughout my career. When I was at the Justice Department, I launched an interagency effort to protect religious liberty –”

“I appreciate that but our time is limited –” said Cruz, not wanting Gupta’s background to be advertised, and cutting her off.

“Senator, Senator, it is only fair to allow her to complete her answer,” Chairman Durbin told the Texas Tea Party Senator.

Cruz was not about to let Durbin set the rules.

“Mr. Chairman, I understand that she has things she wants to say but I asked if she supports the repeal of RFRA,” Cruz said, admitting that he’s lying about the LGBTQ equality Act, which does not repeal the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“Senator, if you want to make a speech you may make a speech,” Durbin replied before Cruz cut him off too.

“I’m asking a question, I’m asking a question, and I understand that you support her nomination so you’re giving a speech too, but, but I’m asking a question,” Cruz repeated.

“I’m asking you allow her to answer,” Durbin again stated.

“She was not answering,” Cruz claimed, unfairly. “She’s welcome to answer the question. The question is, do you support the Equality Act’s repealing RFRA’s protection of religious liberty for Americans?” Cruz said, again falsely stating what the LGBTQ Equality Act does.

“Senator, I support RFRA,” Gupta replied. “I have enforced provisions of RFRA, and the Justice Department must enforce the law. The Justice Department enforces religious liberty and protects it. It also enforces our nation’s anti discrimination laws.”

Cruz again was not satisfied and interrupted Gupta again.

“Let me try again for a third time. Do you support the Equality Act’s repeal of RFRA’s religious liberty protections?” he asked, again lying about what the legislation does.

“Senator, if confirmed as Associate Attorney General, my duty will be to enforce laws to protect religious liberty and the anti discrimination laws that the Justice Department –”

And once again, Cruz interrupted Gupta.

“Okay so you’re declining to answer that as well.”

Sen. Dick Durbin to Sen. Ted Cruz: "Senator if you want to make a speech you may make a speech, but if you're asking a question allow her to answer." pic.twitter.com/KXJxeFnKVV

— The Hill (@thehill) March 9, 2021

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via screencap.

Trump Political Appointee Sues Biden After Refusing to Resign

New Civil Rights Movement | February 9, 2021

Topics: Administrative Conference of the United States, Biden administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Human Rights Campaign, Judicial Crisis Network, Office of Civil Rights, religious freedom, Roger Severino, Trump administration

Roger Severino, the anti-LGBTQ right-wing Christian activist who made things difficult for LGBTQ Americans during his time running HHS’s Office Of Civil Rights for Trump, is suing the Biden administration for firing him.

Roger Severino, a former Trump appointee at the Dept. of Health and Human Services who targeted LGBTQ Americans in his religious crusade as head of the Office of Civil Rights, is suing the Biden administration for firing him from his appointment by the former president to an obscure but powerful federal government agency known as ACUS.

He is refusing to resign, despite being a political appointee.

“President Biden’s attempt to remove me contrary to law exposes his lofty promises of healing and uniting all Americans as nothing more than cynical manipulation,” Severino defiantly told Newsweek.

“Because I am not one to be bullied, not even by the President himself, I will not resign my duly commissioned post and look forward to seeing how President Biden tries to justify his vindictive actions in court.”

Severino’s lawsuit claims that “President Biden has no constitutional authority under Article II to terminate Mr. Severino’s appointment to the Council.”

“The Council” is the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), which holds sway over how U.S. government regulatory agencies operate.

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, writes on Twitter that “Severino’s substantive argument … seems to suggest that ACUS is part of no branch of government, but instead sits outside the executive branch on some heavenly plane.”

He calls the lawsuit “bonkers, BONKERS, just eye-melting galaxy-brain-level drivel.”

What’s especially pathetic, though, is that federal law doesn’t even protect Roger Severino from removal. He’s an at-will employee! He wants the federal judiciary to go beyond the text of the statute and find, in its penumbra, an implicit protection against removal. It is insane.

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) February 4, 2021

Severino spent his four years in the Trump administration working tirelessly to kill protections, many installed by the Obama administration, for LGBTQ patients, effectively promoting discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation. He also expanded opportunities for people of faith to claim anti-religion discrimination by creating the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division at HHS.

At HHS Severino called Obama-era protections for transgender patients “unnecessary.”

And in defending an anti-LGBTQ “religious freedom” regulation, Severino told reporters, “Patients want doctors who match their values.”

As NCRM has previously reported, Severino has been called a “radical” anti-LGBTQ religious right activist by the Human Rights Campaign. He once served as CEO and counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a religious right non-profit that opposes separation of church and state. He has also served as the Director of the DeVos family’s Center for Religion and Civil Society in the Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity.

He is married to Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, which spent millions to install President Donald Trump’s extremist judges, including reportedly tens of millions of dollars to help secure Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via NCRM.

Clarence Thomas Pens Scathing Attack Suggesting Same-Sex Marriage Must Be Overturned

New Civil Rights Movement | October 6, 2020

Topics: Clarence Thomas, Kim Davis, marriage equality, Obergefell v. Hodges, religious freedom, US Supreme Court

The opinion, co-authored by fellow Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, made the argument that marriage equality should never have been allowed, because of (you guessed it) “religious freedom.”

Former Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis won’t get a hearing from the U.S. Supreme Court. A case against her, brought by several same-sex couples she refused to grant marriage licenses to, was rejected Monday by the country’s top court.

But ultra-conservative Justice Clarence Thomas took the opportunity to attack the court’s landmark Obergefell case, which found the Constitution allows same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities of marriage as their different-sex peers.

Thomas, who has a direct line into the White House via his activist and lobbyist wife Ginni Thomas, slammed the decision, suggesting the case should be overturned, as Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern reports.

Why?

“Religious liberty.”

Thomas claims Kim Davis “may have been one of the first victims of this Court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last.”

His words are scathing, and a direct assault on equality.

“Due to Obergefell, those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running afoul of Obergefell and its effect on other antidiscrimination laws,” claims Thomas, five years after the decision.

“It would be one thing if recognition for same-sex marriage had been debated and adopted through the democratic process, with the people deciding not to provide statutory protections for religious liberty under state law,” he adds. “But it is quite another when the Court forces that choice upon society through its creation of atextual constitutional rights and its ungenerous interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause, leaving those with religious objections in the lurch.”

At the time of the Obergefell decision, same-sex marriage was supported by six out of 10 Americans.

In the 2015 Obergefell case, Justice Thomas writes, “the Court read a right to same-sex marriage into the Fourteenth Amendment, even though that right is found nowhere in the text.”

Thomas is a textualist, or originalist, adhering to conservatves’ pseudo-theory created in the 1980’s that claims the Constitution is not a living document, written broadly to stand the test of time. Rather, they believe it must be interpreted as the Founders conceived, with the words being interpreted exactly as the document’s authors intended.

(Textualism, or originalism, has been called “a scam” and Thomas has been blasted for “his hypocrisy” surrounding it.)

“Several Members of the Court noted that the Court’s decision would threaten the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman. If the States had been allowed to resolve this question through legislation, they could have included accommodations for those who hold these religious beliefs,” Thomas writes.

“The Court, however, bypassed that democratic process. Worse still, though it briefly acknowledged that those with sincerely held religious objections to same-sex marriage are often ‘decent and honorable,’” he continues, “the Court went on to suggest that those beliefs espoused a bigoted worldview.”

Believing that LGBTQ people are not equal to non-LGBTQ people is the very definition of bigotry.

Justice Thomas uses the word “bigot” four times in his dissent, which was joined by Justice Samuel Alito.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is attempting to force through the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, giving the Court a 6-3 conservative super-majority.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image by Thomas Cizauskas via Flickr and a CC license

Bob Good’s Path To Congress: Inciting Fear of Transgender People

Marilyn Drew Necci | August 21, 2020

Topics: 5th Congressional District Republican Committee, anti-trans discrimination, Bob Good, Cameron Webb, Denver Riggleman, General Assembly, religious freedom, US Congress

Bob Good, who successfully wrested the Republican nomination for Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District seat away from incumbent Denver Riggleman, is using fears of “a man dressed as a woman” in his campaign literature.

We haven’t checked in on the Republican Party of Virginia’s 5th Congressional District since last year, when the coalition that had sent Denver Riggleman to Congress in 2018 was, only a year later, publicly tearing itself apart in heated fashion due to the fact that Riggleman had officiated a same-sex wedding between two of his former campaign staffers. Since then, things have only gotten more heated and dramatic, culminating earlier this summer with a party convention that chose to nominate Campbell County Board of Supervisors member Bob Good to run on the Republican ticket in November instead of Riggleman.

Riggleman has recovered well — he’s remained active in Congress despite suddenly finding himself a lame-duck Representative, and is now apparently mulling a third-party run for Governor in 2021. Meanwhile, Virginia’s Fifth District has found itself with a choice on its hands that is far different from the one it faced in 2018. And with Bob Good on the Republican ticket, it’s a significantly more controversial one as well.

You see, until January of this year, Bob Good was Director of Athletics at Liberty University. And now that you know that, it may not surprise you very much to learn that Good has an extremely negative attitude toward the LGBTQ community. Even before he’d announced his intention to run against Riggleman for the Republican nomination in the Fifth District, he condemned Riggleman’s having officiated a gay wedding on his Facebook page. In one comment, he said that “supporting gay rights” meant that “Denver Riggleman does not represent the values of conservative Republicans in the 5th District.” In another, he said, “You can’t flaunt your apparently progressive/liberal values in front of the conservative Republican base in the district and expect to not catch any flack for it.”

Riggleman officiating the wedding of two of his campaign staffers. (photo by Christine Riggleman)

After Good officially declared his campaign for Riggleman’s Congressional seat, he said at a February campaign event, “I have a biblical view of marriage, very different from the congressman’s view on that.” Meanwhile, on Good’s website, he republished a letter from 11 Fifth District voters, originally sent to the Bedford Bulletin, in which they characterize homosexuality as a mental illness. “Homosexuality is a very complex subject that medical science has confirmed is psychological moreso than genetic,” they write, in the midst of arguing in favor of voting Good into Congress.

Now, with a recent campaign mailing inviting clergy members to meet with Good about the importance of “religious freedom” — a loaded phrase, to say the least, where LGBTQ rights are concerned — Good has used the existence of transgender people, and specifically trans women, as an opportunity for fear-mongering.

“What happens when a male member of your congregation goes on vacation and returns four weeks later as a female?” the invitation read. “What do your church bylaws state regarding a man dressed as a woman who attends a church function and expects to use the women’s restroom?” Though the email using this language wasn’t signed by Good, it was sent by the Good campaign’s “Faith Coalition leader,” Travis Witt. The subject line read in part, “When a man becomes a woman.”

The invitation also used the spectre of the Virginia Values Act, passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Ralph Northam earlier this year, as a bugbear. In the mailer, Good’s campaign claims that the Virginia Values Act — which prohibits discrimination in housing, employment, and public accomodation to anyone on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity — infringes upon… yup, you guessed it: religious freedom.

“Bob Good, candidate for Congress, is interested in preserving religious liberties as defined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” Witt’s invitation to Fifth District clergy read. “He is extremely concerned about the recent changes that now affect both large and small churches.”

Bob Good meets with clergy in Madison County (Photo via Bob Good for Congress/Facebook)

This move from a relatively moderate Republican who supported LGBTQ rights to a candidate who’s centered his campaign on attacking our rights has, in the minds of many Democrats, put the Fifth District into play in November. From being a state that went Republican in presidential elections for over 40 years straight, Virginia has transformed significantly in recent years. As of now, only four of Virginia’s 13 legislators in Congress are Republican. On the state level, Democrats hold both the governor’s mansion and both houses of the General Assembly — something that, at the time of the 2019 election, hadn’t been true in over two decades. For Democrats to take one of those four remaining Republican Congressional districts would be a huge coup. And it’s one Fifth District Democrats hope to achieve with their current candidate, Cameron Webb.

Webb, a doctor who teaches at the University of Virginia, would become the first Black physician to serve in Congress if elected in November. Political experts still see the district as leaning Republican, but polling shows Webb as close as two points away from Good, and between the possibility that Webb will draw a higher Black turnout in the election and Good’s choice to focus on opposition to LGBTQ rights, Democrats hope they can close that gap completely.

“We’re in the middle of a pandemic that has infected over 100,000 Virginians and a recession that has put millions across the country out of work, but all Bob Good wants to focus on is same-sex marriages,” Grant Fox, a Virginia Democratic Party spokesman, told the New York Times. “Virginians need help, and Bob Good is spending his time convening church officials to figure out how to best discriminate against the LGBTQ community.”

The Human Rights Campaign has also rallied around Webb, and condemned Good’s discriminatory positions. “The 1.3 million Equality Voters across Virginia have no patience for this type of divisiveness and hate,” said HRC president Alphonso David in a statement. “Bob Good might have been able to win a low-turnout party caucus by attacking LGBTQ people, but Virginia voters showed in 2018 and 2019 that attacking LGBTQ people is no winning strategy. Transphobia and anti-LGBTQ attacks are unacceptable. We need leaders like Dr. Cameron Webb in Congress who will bring us together and expand opportunity and rights for everyone, not amplify hate and division.”

Dr. Cameron Webb (Photo via Facebook)

Will the Fifth District’s Republican Party allow far-right intractability over LGBTQ rights to derail their ability to maintain representation in a county that ostensibly leans Republican? Or is this going to be one of those times that we find out we share a state with people whose intolerance runs deeper than we ever expected? We’ll learn in less than three months; in the meantime, Cameron Webb’s campaign could sure use your help.

Top Photo via BobGoodForCongress.com

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