Time for GOP to get right with LGBTQ community
Perhaps it was all those holiday wishes for “Peace on earth” and “Goodwill to mankind” that crept into the mind of retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch.
In his farewell address to Congress this week, the Utah Republican floated an idea at odds with a large part of his party’s base, among whom Evangelical Christians are disproportionately represented.
Hatch, a Mormon, said religious conservatives could make peace with affirming the equal rights of LGBTQ Americans.
“Pluralism shows us a better way,” he said, according to the Washington Post. “It shows us that protecting religious liberty and preserving the rights of LGBTQ individuals are not mutually exclusive.”
Unfortunately, Hatch’s call for common ground, for reasonable people to meet, does not seem likely — not in this White House. The president has given lip service to the LGBTQ community and yet let his administration stomps on gains that some secured.
Recall that the White House stirred up unnecessary controversy by rescinding guidelines that had been allowing public schools to let students use whichever bathroom they wished, based on their gender identity.
Previously, many public (and private) school districts had quietly managed the needs of transgender students, often by making a separate unisex bathroom available.
The day after Hatch made his plea, the Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow at least a temporary ban of transgender people in the military, even as the lower courts are still debating the issue. That effort dismisses the fact that former and present commanders and national security experts consider the people crucial to the military.
In October, it was reported that the Trump administration was trying to circumvent the courts by changing the definition of sex in federal civil rights standards to be “a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth.”
Policy gambits like these, surely aimed at scoring points with conservative Christian voters, are utter failures in light of the “rainbow wave” evident in the results of November’s elections. More than 240 of the 432 openly LGBTQ candidates who sought office were elected.
The outcomes suggest that Americans are far less concerned with sexual orientation or identity than conservatives believe they are.
Hatch articulated a point that is often misunderstood, especially by conservatives. Ensuring equal rights to all is not giving “special rights” to some. Nor does it infringe on the conscience of a religious believer. It simply means that a religious person may not use his religious views as an excuse to restrict the rights of another.
Many people still buy into a wishful ignorance: the false belief that people choose their sexual orientation. To admit that this is not the case is, perhaps, too dangerous for many religious conservatives. It opens the door to other doubts about doctrine and faith.
Hatch didn’t seem to worry about that as he gave a heartfelt appeal that seemed more aligned with these words from Jesus: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.”
America’s political ethos, at its best, encourages us to see the other person as equally deserving of the civil rights we ourselves enjoy. And the fate of citizens in the world to come is none of our government’s business.