Christofascist Hysteria Over EEOC Pro-Gay Ruling Grows

As noted in two earlier posts, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruling last week that held that employment discrimination based on sexual orientation constitutes gender discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark ruling.  Not surprisingly, it is causing hysteria among the Christofascists who believe that they have the right to trample on the rights of others with impunity.  A piece in the Washington Blade provides the take away from the ruling:

The ruling is as significant as people are saying it is. The Commission’s decision that sexual orientation discrimination is always sex discrimination under Title VII now applies across all of the Commission activities, including charges brought to us by employees and applicants who work in the private sector or for state or local governments. While the particular order in this case involves only the Department of Transportation and the complainant, the legal analysis in this opinion affects all of the EEOC’s work – both for federal workers and private sector workers. 

What the EEOC has done is offer a chance to bring cases of LGBT discrimination under existing law. That is a very big deal. But that does not remove the need for an explicit federal law that would give LGBT people and employers across the country absolute certainty that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity will be prohibited. 

Leading the Christofascist lament and claims of coming persecution is Maggie Gallagher, former president of the hate group, National Organization for Marriage, who has never overcome the psychological scars arising from her unwed motherhood while in college.  Gallagher's particular peeve is that the EEOC carved out no special rights for the hate-filled "godly folk."  Here's a sampling of Gallagher's whining rant (as always she wants to make tyranny of the majority the law of the land):  

On Friday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made a remarkably lawless decision: it unilaterally added “sexual orientation” the Civil Rights Act of 1964, . . . . Everyone knows the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not include sexual orientation.

But why let words, or reality, or democracy, or the rule of law get in the way of the power to achieve your ends?  In the 3-2 party line vote, the majority of unelected regulators just made up that “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is necessarily an allegation of sex discrimination” because (the three regulators assume) sexual orientation discrimination “is premised on sex-based preferences, assumptions, expectations, stereotypes or norms.” 

Now, unless Congress acts, every religious school, charity, and parachurch organization must hire openly gay people, or face potential backbreaking litigation.

Will Kennedy overturn this ruling?  Don’t count on it.  Will Congress pass a law against it, clarifying the Civil Rights Act of 1964 means what it says?  Don’t count on that either.  But it is a crucial test of whether or not the GOP is going to acquiesce in the redefinition of Christianity as racism.

I hate to say it, but Gallagher needs to wake up and face the reality that, if one looks at the history of racism in America in particular, it has almost always gone hand in glove with conservative Christianity.   Think of the Southern Baptists, think of the right wing denominations that resisted desegregation and think of the religious allegiances of those waving Confederate flags currently.