Religious leaders should stop justifying discrimination
Some religious and conservative leaders are demanding insidious exemptions in anti-discrimination legislation that the Michigan Senate has just approved.
Senate Bill 4 would amend the state’s 1976 Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act by adding LGBTQ individuals to the list of classes protected from discrimination in the areas of employment, public accommodations and services, educational facilities, as well as housing and real estate. Seems fair enough, right? Not according to some Michigan Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Republican leaders. They are seeking to add a religious exemption to the bill that would allow them to discriminate in the name of their faith. In a since-deleted post on Twitter, the Michigan GOP said that the original bill is “a direct attack on religious freedom.” It replaced the tweet with a clear endorsement of an amendment sponsored by state Sen. Jim Runestad to add “religious orientation, religious expression and identity” to the bill.
The Religious Right has become recently emboldened in its quest to discriminate in the name of religion. The attack on LGBTQ individuals is being framed as the biblical principle that same-sex relationships and other marginalized identities and orientations are strictly prohibited by their religion. Earlier this year, an Arkansas state senator invoked biblical scripture to justify his bill banning drag by remarking: “I believe the Bible, I believe that if the Bible says ‘if a man dresses like a woman, and a woman dresses like a man’ it is an abomination to God.” In a more blatant display of anti-LGBTQ sentiment finding justification in the Bible, Rep. Rick Allen, R-Ga., read a verse in Congress from the Bible that mentions homosexuals are worthy of death.
Members of the Religious Right are masking their bigotry in victimhood, claiming that religionists are being blocked from freely exercising their religion if they have to follow the same laws as all other citizens. They claim their religion makes them above the law.
The gig is hopefully up for them in the Michigan Statehouse, however. Michigan legislators have not yet given in to the hate spewed by these groups. On its way to the House, all of the amendments to the bill that sought to allow religious bigotry were rejected. In a statement condemning the passage of SB 4 without his desired amendments, Vice President for Public Policy and Advocacy for the Michigan Catholic Conference Tom Hickson said, “We’re disappointed that members of the Senate voted today to deny constitutional rights and protections to religious organizations that hold long-standing beliefs about marriage that differs from the secular culture.”
Make no mistake about it. Hickson wants favoritism to discriminate against a marginalized group. There is no constitutional right for that — or any place for that in a civilized society.