Rally Against Oppressive ‘Religious Freedom’

The rallying cry and Trojan Horse of the Christofascists and far right politicians who prostitute them selves to them is "religious freedom" and now laws that claim to protect it while, in fact, granting broad licenses to discriminate.  While the chief targets of such laws are gays, the language is often so broad that any number of other laws may be ignored if one bases one's actions on "religious belief," opening the right to discriminate against blacks, Jews, and a host of other minorities.  These laws thus grant a wide array of special rights to the hate-filled, bigoted set.  A piece in Salon looks at efforts to rally against such a law under consideration in Georgia (amazingly, a similar law was just defeated in West Virginia).  Here are highlights:

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Georgians had another reason to be drinking yesterday besides the obvious one. A new bill could make Georgia one of the least LGBT-friendly states in the country and there’s less than a month left to stop it. . . . the “Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act” (GRFRA).

The GRFRA—also known as SB129—is headed to the Georgia House of Representatives after clearing the Senate by a wide margin and, if passed, it will become what The Daily Beast’s Jay Michaelson has called “the nation’s harshest ‘religious freedom’ law,” granting business owners unprecedented latitude to refuse service to LGBT people and potentially even impeding child abuse investigations.

The law itself makes no reference to these consequences, only citing the need to defend “persons whose religious exercise is substantially burdened by government.”  

“We know that this is about discrimination,” said Executive Director of Georgia Equality Jeff Graham at the start of the rally.

SB129 is just one of many state-level RFRA laws that have become the religious right’s reactionary response to recent same-sex marriage gains. With a Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage expected this year, the fight over LGBT rights is quickly moving from weddings to wedding cakes—specifically to whether or not a Christian baker can refuse to make one for a same-sex couple.

The speakers at yesterday’s rally to stop SB129 seemed like an unlikely group of allies: a rabbi, a Republican, a lawyer, a Baptist. One organizer told The Daily Beast that it was “like the start of a bad joke.”  But the diverse array of speakers revealed the breadth of groups who oppose the bill while highlighting the fact that LGBT Georgians will need to make some strange bedfellows to keep it off the governor’s desk.

 While LGBT Georgians continue to write emails and flood phone lines, the fate of SB129 remains uncertain in the House. On one hand, Speaker David Ralston (R) has been skeptical of SB129 in recent comments on Georgia public television.

But Ralston’s caution has already earned him the ire of those further to his right. Erick Erickson of RedState has concluded from his comments that “Speaker of the House David Ralston does not believe Christians need their faith protected” and that Ralston is “willing to see Christians surrender their ability to live their faith outside of 11 AM to noon on Sunday.” The religious right in Georgia will be making phone calls as well.

 The hatred of others and extreme selfishness of the "godly folk" is chilling. Again I ask, when are moral and decent folk going to stop giving them - and religion in general - undeserved deference?