"Religious Liberty" - The Christofascists' Euphemism for the Mistreatment of Others

Aided by the Trump/Pence regime Christofascists have worked to conflate the terms "religious liberty" and "religious freedom" as part of their demand that they have special rights and privileges, not the least of which is carte blanche to discriminate against and to mistreat others.  Sadly, much of the mainstream media has given cover for such self-centered hate merchants by using these two terms and failing to describe the Christofascists' agenda for what it is: the right to discriminate at will and to be above the laws that govern the rest of us.  The same holds true for referring to these people as "Christian conservatives" rather than as bigots or those who embrace ignorance in the face of modern knowledge.  Today's Supreme Court ruling will hopefully shine a spotlight on the dis-ingenuousness of the Christofascists' word game and their continued demand that they be put above the law - something the Founders never contemplated. A piece in the Washington Post looks at more of this Christofascist effort to conflate religious freedom with unvarnished bigotry and often outright hatred of others.  Here are article excerpts:

In a landmark decision on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal law barring employment discrimination on the basis of sex also applies to sexuality and gender identity.

The decision was also met with alarm by several religious conservatives who fear what it could eventually mean for their [right to discriminate] religious freedom and how it could affect faith-based employers, including religious health-care providers, religious schools and social services operated by religious groups.

Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, wrote that the ruling will make it harder for employers to operate according to their sincerely held beliefs.

The court’s 6-to-3 decision, written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, was met with surprise because Gorsuch’s appointment by President Trump had spurred delight among social conservatives.

Some, including Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Andrew Walker and conservative commentator Erick Erickson, argued that Monday’s decision undercuts an argument from some Trump supporters that religious conservatives will vote for him based on his Supreme Court picks.

However, the court did not settle religious liberty questions in its Monday decision.

But worries about how Title VII may intersect with religious liberty are nothing new; they even predate the statute’s passage,” Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion.

The court combined two cases to consider whether gay workers are protected under the law. Attorneys for the two employers involved in Monday’s decision were not arguing the cases on religious grounds. In one of the cases, the owner of a Michigan funeral home had argued under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in a lower court but lost. It did not raise that argument in the appeal to the Supreme Court.

In 2012, the Supreme Court protected religious organizations from discrimination lawsuits brought by certain employees who are considered “ministers” of the faith. Two cases pending before the court concern whether teachers at parochial schools who do not primarily teach religion are among those who can’t sue.

While religious conservatives voiced concern, progressive faith leaders expressed support for the LGBT workers who won the case.

“Too often employers overstep the boundaries of personal religious freedom — the right to believe as we choose — to impose their beliefs on others through staffing decisions and workplace culture,” Katy Joseph, director of policy and advocacy at Interfaith Alliance, wrote in a statement. “Turning away LGBTQ+ job applicants and employees, or terminating their employment due to their identity, isn’t religious freedom — it’s discrimination.”

The Fairness for All Act, introduced last year in Congress, tried to reconcile nondiscrimination protections for people who are LGBT with protections for people of faith. It had the backing of groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals and the American Unity Fund.

Monday’s decision could kill those legislative efforts, said Douglas Laycock, a professor at the University of Virginia Law School.

“This will end all legislative bargaining over religious liberty in the gay-rights context,” Laycock wrote in an email. “There is no longer a deal to be had in which Congress passes a gay-rights law with religious exemptions; the religious side has nothing left to offer.”

Pandemic Highlights the USA's Partisan (and Intelligence?) Religious Divide

While it seems a significant majority of Americans are taking social distancing seriously and are heeding the recommendations of medical experts, a sizable segment of the Trump/Republican Party base is challenging stay-at-home orders and in some instances are suing the sane (usually Democrat) governors who wisely did not deem church services as "essential services."  It is part and parcel with the "religious right's" contempt for science and modern knowledge which increasingly show the falsity of evangelicals' beliefs.  Not surprisingly, some Republican governors have created carve outs for church gatherings to appease and pander to the Christofascists.  Similarly, the always despicable AG Bill Barr has sided with churchgoers who received $500 tickets for disobeying a stay at home order  and attending church services.  In short, the pandemic is highlighting the partisan, and I would argue, intellectual, divide between those who comprise the GOP base and in contrast, the Democrat base.  A piece at CNN looks at the the actions of Christofascists who insist on creating a public health menace under the smoke screen "religious liberty" and their Republican apologists and enablers.  Here are article excerpts:

The battle over religious exemptions to coronavirus stay-at-home orders, which flared again over Easter weekend, captures the likelihood of steadily rising tension in coming years between an increasingly secular American society and the most religiously conservative voters, particularly white evangelical Protestants.

Though relatively few churches in fact sought to meet in person over Easter weekend, several religious leaders have prominently asserted that churches should be exempt from stay-at-home orders. The question has produced intense partisan conflict in some states, such as Kansas and Kentucky, where local Republicans and some church leaders have fought restrictions on in-service worshipping from Democratic governors.
 These skirmishes mark a new front in a widening debate over the meaning of religious liberty in an era when white Christians, for the first time in American history, have fallen below a majority of the population -- and face no prospect of reversing that decline in a nation that is growing more diverse and more secular.
 Compounding the volatility, these religious distinctions increasingly parallel the partisan divide. Studies show that white Christians still constitute a clear majority of self-identified Republicans; meanwhile, minorities, secular whites and Americans professing non-Christian faiths represent as many as three-fourths of Democrats.
 The state-level response to the coronavirus outbreak shows the influence of those contrasting profiles. . . . . GOP leaders have generally put more weight on asserting claims of religious freedom.

In Kansas, the GOP Legislature voted last week to overturn Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's decision to include churches in her ban on large gatherings -- only to have the state Supreme Court uphold her jurisdiction in a ruling just hours before Easter Sunday. Such clashes are just the latest measure of the divisions likely to multiply between a Republican coalition still centered on white Christians and a Democratic Party revolving around the disparate groups who don't fit under that shrinking canopy. "Long term it forecasts ... continued polarization between the parties and it'll make all kind of public policy issues very difficult to deal with," says University of Akron political scientist John C. Green, an expert in religion and politics. The pandemic sharpens these disputes because it so starkly raises the stakes for both sides: Not only has the crisis compelled governments to assert almost unprecedented authority to limit religious gatherings, but it also has magnified the potential impact of religious institutions' actions on the health of the broader community. Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of the First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based group that promotes religious freedom from government intervention. "At the beginning everybody was kind of playing well together ... but what's started to happen now is you've got people ... starting to do crazy stuff and discriminate against the church and attack religious entities." Conversely, Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says that exemptions for religious services in state gathering bans amount to unconstitutional discrimination in favor of religion.
 "We should all be able to live confident in the promise of our Constitution that the government will not advantage or disadvantage any of us based on our religious beliefs, but with these religious exemptions that's exactly what the government is doing," she said. "They are saying some of us get special treatment because of our religious beliefs even when that special treatment puts lives at risk. It is immoral ... but it's also unconstitutional." [T]he US religious landscape is inexorably growing more diverse. But this systemic change has affected the parties in very different ways. The result is that religious affiliation has joined such key markers as race, age and geography as a principal dividing line between the two electoral coalitions.

[R]ecent studies, from the Pew Research Center and the Public Religion Research Institute, two nonpartisan institutions, have found white Christians now account for only about two-fifths of the population. Adults unaffiliated with any religion have grown to represent one-fourth of the total, in both groups' studies, about the same share as racial minorities who identify as Christian.

But while white Christians have fallen below majority status nationwide, they still represent 64% of all self-identified Republicans, according to data Pew provided me last year from some 170,000 survey interviews conducted in 2018 and 2019. The Democratic profile is strikingly different. White Christians now make up only 25% of the party, Pew found, while racial minorities who identify as Christian account for another 30%. About 1 in 11 Democrats observed non-Christian faiths. Fully one-third of Democrats don't identify with any religion at all -- a larger cohort than either group of Christians.

It's easy to see the Republican efforts to minimize constraints on religious gatherings alienating secular voters who view those policies, along with Laser, as favoring religion over science and public health. . . . The coronavirus crisis "could very well" exacerbate the religious divide between the parties, notes Green, of the University of Akron. The key question, he says, is "how do existing divisions play out under the pressure of the crisis?

During the coronavirus pandemic, the critical battlefield for this conflict has been the question of whether to exempt religious services from state limits on large gatherings. . . . . surveys that allow for comparisons along religious lines have found that white evangelical Protestants stand apart from other major groups in their attitudes toward the coronavirus outbreak.

In polling conducted late last month by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, more than two-fifths of white evangelical Protestants described the outbreak as only a minor threat to the health of the US population. White evangelical Protestants were also much less likely than any other groups to say Americans were not taking the threat seriously enough and much more likely to say both that the media was exaggerating the danger and that they approved of President Donald Trump's handling of the crisis.

"White evangelicals have got the skepticism about science and they have the skepticism about big government and they have Donald Trump sowing doubts about how serious this whole thing is and whether we are overreacting," Jones said.  

Today's GOP is increasingly a bunch of ignorance embracing religious zealots currently lead by a lying carnival barker.    

Refusal of Interracial Couple Shows Dangers of "Religious Freedom" Exemptions

Wedding Hall that refused an interracial couple due to "Christian belief."

Having followed various right wing "Christian" organizations and prominent "professional Christians" - e.g. Tony Perkins of Family Research council - I have long believed that not only are these folks anti-gay and anti-abortion (even as they kick children to the gutter once they are born), but they are also racist and anti-anyone who doesn't have white skin.  Thus, I believed it was only a matter of time before some followers of this toxic form of religious belief showed their hand and would demand the right to discriminate against blacks and/or interracial couples based on their "deeply held religious belief."   Sure enough, the owners of a wedding hall in Mississippi rejected an interracial couple and cited their "Christian religious beliefs" as justification for refusing to allow a mixed race couple to have their wedding at the venue.  Yes, lots of sputtering and denials of what was meant ensued, but the first statement showed the real mind set of many of these "godly Christians," especially in Deep South states like Mississippi which typically ranks dead last among the 50 states in numerous categories. More troubling is the fact that this is precisely the type of bigotry and discrimination that the Trump/Pence regime seeks to legalize under the euphemism of protecting "religious freedom."  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at what happened and the danger that it exposes, namely that Christian extremist want to be above the law and able to discriminate at will.  My personal prediction: we are already headed down that road and four more years of Trump/Pence would lead to the legalization of such racial discrimination if bigots cite "religious belief" as their justification. Here are article highlights:

The owner of a Mississippi wedding hall, Donna Russell, made news last week for refusing to provide space for an interracial marriage due to her religious beliefs. Russell was caught on film stating that “First of all, we don’t do gay weddings or mixed race, because of our Christian race—I mean, our Christian belief. . . .”

It took twenty years after the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, banning state laws against interracial marriage, for Mississippi to amend its constitution and remove the amendment prohibiting miscegenation. Loving nullified all state laws in 1967, but Mississippi clerks and courts refused to perform or honor interracial marriages for years after. Even in 1987, a bare majority of 52% of Mississippians voted to remove the language from the state constitution.

Currently, Mississippi has the distinction of having one of the broadest explicitly anti-LGBT laws in the country: the state permits state-licensed child welfare agencies to refuse to place and provide services to children and families, including LGBT people and same-sex couples, if doing so conflicts with their religious belief; it permits state officials to decline to marry couples of whose marriage they disapprove; and it likewise permits medical professionals to decline to serve LGBT clients.

In a fiery opinion from 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves issued a temporary injunction halting Mississippi’s broad anti-LGBT law from going into effect, finding that “It is not rationally related to a legitimate end.” But the Governor appealed to the Fifth Circuit, who held that the plaintiffs who challenged the law lacked standing (the ability to show an injury stemming from the law). The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, effectively letting the Circuit Court’s approval stand and the law to go into full effect.

As the Christian right, bolstered by evangelical donors and the Trump administration, continues to undermine justice for LGBTQ people through religious exemptions based on a narrow theology, rhetoric like that of the Mississippi wedding hall owner gives one pause for thought. In states where same-sex marriages neither need to be solemnized nor honored, are interracial marriages far behind? And if people like Donna Russell believe their refusal to honor interracial marriages is rooted in faith how solid is the holding in Loving?

In fact, this “slippery slope” argument was brought up during oral arguments for Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission by Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, when the former asks: “Same case or not the same case, if your client instead objected to an interracial marriage?”

To which the Cakeshop’s lead counsel, Kristen Waggoner replies: “Very different case in that context.” Waggoner is trying to make a very specific argument here: that marrying someone of your same gender is a choice, is speech, is not a right guaranteed by the 14^th Amendment’s right to Equal Protection under the law because, in her view, and in the view of Alliance Defending Freedom, there is nothing there to protect. ADF, and Waggoner, are arguing that asking a baker to make a cake to celebrate your marriage to someone of your same gender is closer to asking a baker to make a penis cake for a bachelorette party. The inference, in other words, is that being gay is a choice and therefore that the “message” these two men were trying to convey was the choice to marry someone of the same sex, a kind of message a business ought to be able to reject.

But what of those, like Donna Russell, who believe that interracial marriage is as wrong as same-sex marriage, regardless of legal or theological justification?

There aren’t current data on state-by-state support for interracial marriage, but while 18% of all newly married people in urban areas are married to someone of a different race, only 3% of newlyweds in Jackson, Mississippi are married to someone of a different race, the lowest percentage in the country. Discrimination on the basis of race is prohibited by federal statute, and states are explicitly prohibited by federal case law from banning marriage for interracial and same-sex couples. But, with conservative Christian legislators, litigators (like the Alliance Defending Freedom, who drafted Mississippi’s anti-LGBT statute), and judges growing in power and number, how slippery is the slope of religious exemptions? And are the exemptions merely codifying what’s already taking place? 

Of course this mindset which is common in Mississippi is precisely why new and progressive businesses avoid Mississippi like the plague.  Hopefully more business will pay heed and scratch Mississippi - and similar states - off the list of potential locations for new plants and operation centers. Bigotry needs to carry a heavy price even when wrapped in the smoke screen of feigned religious belief. 

Masking Hate Behind "Religious Freedom" Rhetoric

Donald Trump and the equally sinister Mike Pence have enthusiastically climbed on-board the Christofascists rallying cry of "religious freedom" as a means to gain special privileges for themselves and to mask their real motivation: hatred of others. The Trump/Pence regime has been relentless in its efforts to harm LGBT Americans, most recently filing briefs  with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that it is lawful to fire employees due to the sexual orientation, a move that sent many Christofascists into near orgasmic delight.  Sadly, many straights do not understand that gays and transgender citizens are not the only targets of the Christofascists.  Women and religious minorities likewise need to be concerned by the insidious use of claims of religious freedom to disguise hate and bigotry.   It is also necessary to note that claims of religious freedom can create public health threats as underscored by the measles outbreak in New York City centered on an ultra-orthodox Jewish community.   Religious beliefs should never be allowed to outweigh public safety issues or the civil rights of others.   Freedom of worship means exactly that: worshiping at religious services of one's choice and not having your tax dollars used to support an official state sponsored church.  A column in the New York Times and USA Today look at the effort to use the ploy of religious freedom in a way never contemplated by the Founding Fathers to harm other citizens and deprive them of equal civil rights.  First these excerpts from the Times piece: 

In 1976 I left a small Catholic grammar school, where we prayed aloud four times a day, to attend a large public high school where we didn’t pray aloud at all. The United States Supreme Court had banned school-sponsored prayer in 1962, but nobody was keeping me from praying. . . . I prayed all day long, and no one in my public school had any idea I was praying at all.

It has been decades since I prayed my way through high school, but all across the red states, conservative Christians are still challenging that 1962 decision, constantly pushing the limits of what “student-led” prayer in public school, which the ruling permits, really means. Earlier this year, a 17-year-old student in Louisiana sued her school district for beginning the day with a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Technically a student leads the prayer. In reality the student reads from a printout that school officials set beside the microphone.

Conservative Christians are forever trying to inject their personal religious beliefs into the public sphere. Here in Tennessee, the owner of a small-town bakery just outside Nashville recently reneged on an agreement to bake a wedding cake because the wedding in question involved two brides and no grooms.

It would be almost funny if it weren’t so unfair. It’s illegal for a store owner to discriminate against customers because they happen to belong to a group against which the shopkeeper harbors a personal prejudice. It’s illegal for a racist to open a restaurant that serves only white people. Prejudice cloaked in the robes of religious faith should follow the same precedent.

Only it doesn’t. In this country, citing religious or spiritual convictions is often a surefire way to get out of doing something you’re required by law to do. If your religion claims that homosexuality is sinful, this logic goes, then why should you be required to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple? If practicing birth control runs counter to your church’s teaching, then why should the health insurance you offer your employees be required to cover a vasectomy? And why, if your religion teaches you to forego vaccines that prevent viral illnesses, should you be required to vaccinate your children?

At this very moment, nature is providing the perfect response in the form of a measles outbreak the likes of which we have not seen in this country for a quarter-century. Of the 764 confirmed cases so far this year, the vast majority are clustered in New York City, primarily in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities where some view vaccines as a violation of kosher restrictions and a danger to children’s health.

Here’s what also exacerbates those numbers: failure of political will. Mayor Bill de Blasio has declared a public health emergency and closed some New York City public schools in response to the outbreak, but so far state lawmakers have refused to revoke the religious exemption for vaccination. All 50 states require children to be vaccinated before enrolling in public school, but the vast majority of them allow for similar religious or philosophical exemptions.

We live in an age of easy travel and widespread misinformation, and it’s long past time for lawmakers in this country to propose a much more reasonable definition of religious freedom. The Constitution protects my right to believe whatever I want to believe, including my right to shun science and modern medicine. It does not give me the right to expose innocent people to unnecessary suffering. . . . If you decide not to vaccinate your children, then they should not be allowed to take public transportation or go to public school.

Likewise, if you’re a baker whose religious convictions prevent you from baking a wedding cake for a gay couple, then you need to find a line of work that doesn’t involve selling wedding cakes from a public storefront. You can take your chances with natural family planning if that’s what your religious faith calls you to do, but you’ll still be required to offer your employees health insurance that covers birth control.

Religious faith is a private matter between a believer and God. But how a believer lives in community with other people is something different altogether. It’s time to stop giving believers a pass just because their beliefs happen to run counter to the laws of the nation they live in. Human lives may depend on it.

The op-ed in USA Today continues this theme and looks in particular at the Trump/Pence war against LGBT citizens motivated by Trump's desire to please Christofascists and Pence's own extreme and dangerous religious beliefs.  Here are excerpts:

Last week President Donald Trump took another hostile action against LGBTQ people. But you wouldn’t know that from many of the headlines. 

“Trump Administration Strengthens ‘Conscience Rule’ for Health Care Workers,” read the headline in the New York Times about a bill that would allow doctors, nurses, physicians, pharmacists, nurses, teachers and others to discriminate based on their religious beliefs. National Public Radio’s web site went with “New Trump Rule Protects Health Care Workers Who Refuse Care For Religious Reasons.”

It’s true that someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity are only two among several reasons such workers, under an expanded Department of Health and Human Services rule, may deny care to people based on religious grounds. And most reports did discuss the threat to LGBTQ people, in addition to the threat to other groups, such as women seeking reproductive health care.

But the coded language used by the Trump administration, couched in protecting religious beliefs rather than permitting discrimination against LGBTQ people . . . . Using this coded language to attack LGBTQ rights has benefited this administration as it continues to galvanize conservative evangelicals — who know exactly who is being targeted — while not alienating people who might see these efforts as an attack on civil rights.

But make no mistake: LGBTQ people are among the primary targets if not the main target of such efforts. It's part of religious conservatives' strategy to chip away at marriage equality and LGBTQ rights much as they have done on the issue of abortion rights for many years.

The effort to recast discrimination against LGBTQ people, and roll back rights that were hard won, has indeed been successful. The debate has shifted to issues such as “religious liberty” and “conscience.”

That’s why it’s important that the agenda of anti-LGBTQ forces, including the coded language they use, be fully exposed. Some of the Trump administration’s hostile actions, such as the president’s Twitter announcement in 2017 that’d be banning transgender people from the military, are so overt they can’t be papered over. But others are disguised as protecting religious freedom.

When Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in March, he claimed that “freedom of religion is under attack in our country.” He then portrayed himself and his family as among the victims.

In Virginia and more than half the states, absent a federal law such as the Equality Act recently re-introduced in Congress, there are no protections for LGBT people against such discrimination in employment and education. And yet, in polls Americans express broad support for these protections. Most Americans don’t see this as an issue of “religious liberty” — and many of them are people of faith themselves —  but rather as one of flat out discrimination.

It’s for that reason that Trump, Pence and others in the GOP speak in inexplicit ways to play to the evangelical base, while keeping the anti-LGBTQ agenda below the radar for anyone who would be turned off by blatant bigotry. But when you're the target, you get it. Many of us in the LGBTQ community understand their code and why their intent must be made clear.

Trump's brutal record of hostility to LGBTQ people, and his bowing to those determined to roll back LGBTQ rights, must be fully laid bare to voters before the 2020 election. As long as the administration is allowed to get away with vague statements and code language, it won't be.

Christofascists - it is far past time to stop using the misnomer "conservative Christians" - and in the case of the measles epidemic, ultra-orthodox Jews are in the final analysis intensely self-centered people who care nothing for the rights or very lives of others.  It is all about them and to Hell with everyone else.  The need to be recognized and treated as such.

Trump/Pence Regime Issues "Faith-Based" License to Discriminate

The Trump/Pence regime unleashed another attack in its war against LGBT Americans and others who offend the "deeply held religious beliefs" of Christofascists.  While one of the most direct targets, gays will likely not be the only victims of discrimination by organizations receiving federal taxpayer funds. Recently, the Trump/Pence Justice Department also filed briefs in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that employment discrimination against LGBT individuals is legal and not covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Not by coincidence, each of these latest attacks on LGBT Americans has coincided with growing troubles for Trump in the context of the release of the Mueller Report and now Congressional hears and his need to rally his evangelical Christian base.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at this ominous and dangerous regulation.  Here are excerpts:

President Trump announced a new rule allowing health providers, insurers and employers to refuse to provide or pay for services such as abortion, sterilization or assisted suicide that they say violate their religious or moral beliefs.

The 440-page rule is broad in scope, spelling out specific services that individuals and entities could refrain from providing or paying for based on their beliefs. It also emphasizes parents’ rights to refuse several specific types of care for their children.

Conservative [Christofascist] groups welcomed what they call “conscience protections” for health care workers and others, while LGBTQ and women’s groups warned the rule would reduce services and potentially harm patients if providers refuse to deliver certain care, or treat gay and transgender people.

“Religious liberty is a fundamental right, but it doesn’t include the right to discriminate or harm others,” said Louise Melling, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union. “This rule threatens to prevent people from accessing critical medical care and may endanger people’s lives. … Medical standards, not religious belief, should guide medical care.”

Trump’s remarks on the National Day of Prayer were the third time he has used the 77-year-old annual multifaith observance to make announcements addressing the concerns of Christian conservatives, who are a large part of his base. During his first year in office, he promised to make it easier for religious leaders to speak openly about politics. On Thursday, he said the Johnson Amendment, which prevents churches from endorsing political candidates, has been effectively eliminated, though it would take an act of Congress to officially strike it.

The final rule regarding health care — issued by the Department of Health and Human Services — explicitly mentions abortion, sterilization, assisted suicide and advance directives as issues, and says that individuals and entities — from medical students to people who prep patients before operations to charitable groups — could object on religious or moral grounds.

It also includes language that supporters and opponents alike said would ratchet up parents’ right to dictate whether their children receive several types of care, diminishing the role of the government in guaranteeing youngsters’ well-being.

[T]he rule says that children cannot be made to undergo suicide assessment or early treatment if their parents or legal guardian hold religious or moral objections to such services. And in any state that allows parents to exercise religious objections to childhood vaccines or to testing newborns for hearing loss, doctors must heed those parents’ wishes.

Health-care providers and civil rights groups, however, expressed worry the rule could compromise patients’ well-being in ways large and small. On page 80, for instance, HHS appears to allow for the possibility that ambulance drivers, or EMT personnel, could refuse care in certain situations.

Others feared the rule would be used as cover for discrimination. “The administration’s decision puts LGBTQ people at greater risk of being denied necessary and appropriate health care solely based on their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said David Stacy, government affairs director for Human Rights Campaign . . . 

Expect more preventable deaths and more disease thanks to anti-vaccine extremists and other religious nutcases. 

A release by Fenway Health that condemns the rule also has a handy recap of the Trump/Pence regimes anti-LGBT actions.  Here are highlights:

“This latest attack on the right of everyone, regardless of their religious beliefs, to access health care is extremely alarming and disconcerting. This rule takes the concept of religious freedom and turns it on its head. True religious freedom protects an individual’s right to worship—or not—and harms no one. But this rule is designed so that government employees and healthcare providers can deny service or treatment to LGBT people by claiming that providing such service or treatment would violate their religious beliefs or sincerely held principles,” said Sean Cahill, Director of Health Policy Research at the Fenway Institute at Fenway Health. “Health care is both a human and a civil right. Every law that governs access to health care should put patients first. This new rule does not do that.”

“It is important to view this latest move in the context of a series of attacks on the rights of LGBT patients that have taken place over the last two and a half years,” said Cahill. “Research shows that anti-LGBT discrimination in health care correlates with poorer health outcomes and constitutes a barrier to LGBT people’s ability to access health care.”

Other anti-LGBT policies enacted by the Trump administration that are harming LGBT people include:

• Dismissing Peace Corps volunteers and Air Force service members who tested positive for HIV, and refusing to provide pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention (PrEP) to at-risk Peace Corps volunteers;
• Filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that gender identity is outside of the scope of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex and national origin;”
• Filing a brief in the Masterpiece Cake Shop case before the U.S. Supreme Court supporting discrimination against a gay male couple and stating that there is no compelling federal government interest in prohibiting anti-gay discrimination;
• Placing transgender inmates of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, especially transgender women, at much higher risk of rape by incarcerating them according to their biological sex at birth instead of their gender identity;
• Prohibiting transgender people from serving in the U.S. military;
• Removing sexual orientation and gender identity questions from federal surveys of older adults, people with disabilities, and victims of crime.
• Attempting to repeal or weaken the ACA, which has cut the uninsured rate in half for LGBT people.

Karen Pence's and Christofascists' Fraudulent Embrace of Victimhood

Karen Pence: a bigot playing the victim card.

According to Karen and Mike Pence they are the victims of persecution by those who find it inappropriate for the wife of the Vice President to be employed at a vitriolically anti-LGBT school.  It's not as if there are not a multitude of other schools - both public and private - in Northern Virginia at which Karen Pence could have chosen to work.  Mike Pence finds criticism of his wife's choice "offensive" and whines that they are being "persecuted" for being "Christian."  Never mind that Immanuel Christian School not only bans LGBT individuals and seemingly wants them to cease to exist, but the school also bans anyone that does not embrace its bigotry and homophobia. The Pence's hypocrisy and dis-ingenuousness is the norm nowadays among Christofascists who whine that any restriction on their ability to mistreat others is "persecution." "Modern day Pharisee" is too kind a label for these vicious and falsely pious hypocrites.  A piece at NBCNews looks at this display of false victimhood.  Here are excerpts:

Karen Pence, currently the second lady of the United States, is returning to Immanuel Christian School, a private K-8 elementary school that is a part of the Immanuel Bible Church, to teach art part-time to students.

Civil rights and LGBTQ activists, including most recently Lady Gaga, criticized the SLOTUS’s new position because the school explicitly “refuse[s] admission” to students who do not live according to the “biblical lifestyle” — which means no rough-and-tumble homosexual or bisexual activity. Likewise, the school discriminates against job applicants who do not “live a life of moral purity;” disqualifying conduct includes everything from “lesbian sexual activity” to transgender identity” to “heterosexual activity outside of marriage.”

“It’s disturbing Second Lady Karen Pence would put her stamp of approval on an institution that actively targets LGBTQ students at one of the places where they should feel the safest,” Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement through the organization.

Legally, Immanual Christian School can discriminate against the LGBTQ community. Virginia, in addition to 38 other states, does not prohibit private workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Increasingly, this is the desperate defense of those who find themselves on the wrong side of history — as well as societal and legal norms. While LGBTQ individuals still suffer from hate crimes (especially trans Americans) and prejudice, the majority of Americans have no problem with gay marriage or other civil and legal rights. Realizing this, one pocket of America is now attempting to hide its own historical privilege in the language of the oppressed.

But I have to tell you, to see major news organizations attacking Christian education, is deeply offensive to us,” Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview with Eternal World Television. . . . . Or, as David French wrote at the National Review: “No one is forced to attend the church. No one is forced to attend the school. It’s a voluntary association that is protected by the First Amendment and rooted in the faith that guides the lives of tens of millions of Americans.”

French is correct, actually. Despite having a lifestyle at least partially funded by the American taxpayer, Karen Pence has the freedom to believe in her evangelical Christian faith; she has the freedom to work at a school that espouses this faith — a faith constructed by a morality that is fundamentally patriarchal, sexist and homophobic. And her freedom to do so is indeed protected by the First Amendment.

The ground lines of the cultural battle have been set — and they’re in favor of the bigots, who have strategically positioned themselves as the victims of an attack on their religious freedom.

Through a manipulation of First Amendment language, freedom of religion currently serves as code for bigots to justify not only their discriminatory beliefs but the continuation of verbal and physical violence against minority communities. Even though they project the language of the snowflake at civil rights advocates and liberal-leaning citizens, it is they who cry “victim” when their moral values are exposed as promoting hate and violence. Using a quite simple two-pronged logic, they circumvent accountability by projecting blame onto those people who they discriminate against while obfuscating the bigotry of their own beliefs.

And the refusal to hold oneself accountable is a strategy for dominance that unethically burdens, and potentially harms, others. A more critical interrogation of historical values — here, religious values steeped in misogyny and homophobia — gets crushed by the moral panic of Karen Pence’s defenders, who are frothing at the mouth to evangelize the rightness of America’s “culture wars.”

Here, they even have an unexpected ally in people who perceive Pence’s return to the workplace as an equal rights issue.

However, a woman entering the workforce is not a feminist victory if the work performed is in the service of bigotry and discrimination. Remember, you cannot divorce the act from the identity. This equation is akin to the mislabeling of white suffragists as feminists. White women who fought for other white women to have the vote, and aligned themselves with racist patriarchs in order to finance their constitutional battle for the 19th Amendment, were not feminists.

Karen Pence is not, contrary to what her defenders say, a victim. Willfully ignorant about the harmful cultural messaging of her actions, and complicit with oppressive systems built on bigoted beliefs, she is the unimpeachable mother — white and heterosexual — who, actually, has always been the idol of “good,” Christian, white America. Her defenders are knights in white robes who shout “freedom!” as they cut down their enemy.

This is American history, and, it seems, mother will continue to teach it.

Christian Nationalists' 2019 Anti-Gay, Special Rights Legislative Playbook

As I have often noted, in my more than 25 years tracking "Christian" "family values" organizations, with the exception of perhaps Donald Trump, no one lies more often and disingenuously.  Currently, the favored ruse for gaining special rights for themselves and exemptions from the laws that govern everyone else is the false flag of "religious freedom." The evangelical/Christofascist definition of religious freedom is in reality, the direct opposite of true religious freedom and aims at forcing all of society to accept their poisonous religious beliefs or, failing that, to allow the Pharisee like Christofascists to ignore non-discrimination laws, public accommodation laws, and in the realm of health care, to refuse to treat those they dislike.  Gays, of course, are a favored target, but by extension every other minority group can be targeted through cherry picking bible passages to justify what in truth is nothing more than unvarnished hate and bigotry. As we near 2019 and a new legislative year, the enemies of true religious freedom are preparing to try to turn some of the hate-filled policies into law.  Sadly, one of the architects of this ugly agenda is a Chesapeake, Virginia organization headed by former Congressman Randy Forbes.  A piece in Rewire looks at this anti-religious freedom for all endeavor.  Here are highlights:

State legislatures across the country became showcases for Christian nationalist legislation in 2018. Leading the charge was the ominously named Project Blitz—a coalition of Christian Right groups that are unambiguous about their intentions for the short and long term, to restore America to a Christian nation that never was. The Christian Right groups behind Project Blitz—The Chesapeake, Virginia-based Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation; the National Legal Foundation; and the Wallbuilders Pro-Family Legislators Conference—have published a new state legislative playbook for 2019. [A]bout 74 Project Blitz model bills were considered in 2018. “More than 60 percent involved promoting Christianity in public schools; more than a third were ‘In God We Trust’ display bills,” according to reporting from Church & State.   [O]thers sought to provide religious exemptions (or refusals) from the law in ways that would affect access to reproductive and LGBTQ health care. These included versions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) which had been rebranded as the “Preserving Religious Freedom Act” and the “Marriage Tolerance Act.” . . . . bills are intended to pave the way for far more serious legislation involving religious exemptions from civil rights laws such as FADA, which may be seen as decisive moves towards a theocratic state. Indeed, the 2019 manual, “Report and Analysis on Religious Freedom Measures Impacting Prayer and Faith in America,” is as clear as the previous version in its promotion of a Christian nationalist view of history and a long-term Dominionist political vision that’s profoundly at odds with what most would consider a reasonable approach to religious freedom. While there’s usually some room for religious tolerance on the part of Christian nationalists, there is no tolerance—at least not in the long run—from Dominionists who sustain a long-term vision of organizing all of society and government according to their understanding of the Bible. [A] . . . . Prime Focus, “Resolution Establishing Public Policy Favoring Intimate Sexual Relations Only Between Married, Heterosexual Couples” was published in the current and previous playbooks. The apparent purpose of the nonbinding model resolutions is to help to persuade legislators and executive branch program administrators that not only religious, but also public health, exemptions from the law need to be created, and perhaps litigated, to chip away at marriage equality so that not all marriages need be treated equally under the law. In addition they aim to more generally erode the rights of LGBTQ people. Resolutions on heterosexual marriage, birth gender, and adoption are, they assert, intended to advance “biblical values.” The claim is that there’s sufficient social science data and research in support of their view . . . . refers to pages of material of questionable scientific value about LGBTQ people, leading to the conclusion that LGBTQ people are diseased and dysfunctional. These are used in their argument, for example, in the anti-adoption and foster care bill, to suggest that LGBTQ people are a threat to children. This led them to title the model bill the “Child Protection Act.”   Finally, there is a new section titled “Talking Points to Counter Anti-Religious Freedom Legislation.” This section insists that there cannot be inherent civil rights regarding “sexual orientation” because the term is too vague and there is too much disagreement over its meaning. Similarly, the manual declares: The term “gender identity” has no fixed meaning and, by definition, is the product of an individual, subjective determination that may conflict with how the individual objectively appears to others. Because of its subjectivity, the term can be used by an individual in a temporally inconsistent manner, and legislation based on its use is vague and violates due process.

The manual goes on to detail arguments against bans on “conversion therapy” that have been enacted in several states and against repeal of state RFRAs. 

Project Blitz . . . . also reflects the central anti-abortion politics of our time. . . . one bill, (“Licensed Professional Civil Rights Act”) on conscience clause exemptions in professional licensing standards has implications for health workers and pharmacists (who might seek religious exemptions for their role in providing contraception or abortion care), as well mental health practitioners who refuse to help LBGTQ patients. It should also be noted that versions of state-level  RFRAs and FADAs include generous religious exemptions for both institutions and individuals on matters related to reproductive health care. The 2019 legislative session has not yet begun, but Project Blitz is already getting attention. . . . . Platt stressed the importance of preventing the Christian Right from distorting the meaning of religious freedom and bending it to their purposes. She stressed that “it’s really important to … remind ourselves what religious liberty really is, which is the freedom of individuals and communities to practice their religious beliefs, or to practice no religion, in a pluralistic society, free from government persecution, discrimination, or coercion. So this is a foundational constitutional value, and it’s a progressive value.” “They’ve managed to conflate that term [religious freedom] with particular, narrow protections for conservative religious beliefs about sex, marriage, and reproduction, while totally ignoring the enormous variety of views that we know people of faith—including Christians—have had on these matters. And, of course, ignoring completely the very existence of LGBTQ people of faith.”  “My takeaway from all of this would just be don’t play on their turf,” Platt said. “Don’t buy into their idea that all religious exemptions enhance religious liberty, and don’t buy into an inherent conflict between religious liberty and civil rights. These exemptions are … actually violating religious liberty.” 

West Point, Virginia School Systems Fires Anti-Transgender Teacher.

Anti-trans bigot, Peter Vlaming who was fired by the West Point School Board
for repeated insubordination.

In sharp contrast to the Gloucester County School Board which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to fight for the right to mistreat a transgender student, the West Point, Virginia School Board fired a teacher who refused to address a transgender student by the correct pronouns despite being ordered by the school principal to cease the offending behavior.  The teacher is not surprisingly being represented by someone from scamvagelist Pat Robertson's Regent University.  Not surprisingly, the usual hate groups, such as The Family Foundation - which has white supremacist antecedents - have their panties in a wad and are shrieking that the teacher is being "persecuted" and punished for his anti-LGBT beliefs.  The School Board denied the allegation and described the firing on insubordination in the face of clear directives as to how students are to be treated.  Equality Virginia summed up the situation well:

Transgender students, like all students, deserve the opportunity to do well in school and that means classrooms should be spaces where students feel safe, supported, and respected. But, transgender students are too often targeted for bullying, harassment, or mistreatment. Families expect teachers to support their children, not target them as different. 

Yesterday, the West Point School Board made it clear that transgender students should not be singled out because of who they are. We stand behind their unanimous vote. Research has shown that when transgender youth are allowed to use their chosen name at work, school, and home, their risk of depression and suicide drops. We know that taking steps to help young people affirm their gender identity is not only the respectful thing to do, but also developmentally appropriate. A public school teacher should know that, too. 

Whether the teacher - no doubt with encouragement from Christofascist groups - will contest the firing remains to be seen.  Increasingly, "Christian" hate groups are financing the legal costs of anti-LGBT teachers/professors who think they are above the rules and have a license to abuse LGBT students. Christianity is supposedly about love, but nowadays the Christofascists have made it all about hating others based on their race, national origin, religious belief and/or sexual orientation. Think Progress has more on this welcomed firing of a bigot.  Here are excerpts:

In a fairly open-and-shut case, a Virginia school district has terminated a teacher who refused to respect a transgender student’s identity in accordance with the school’s policies.

After a four-hour public hearing Thursday, the West Point School Board voted 5-0 to terminate French teacher Peter Vlaming. Vlaming had previously been placed on administrative leave after refusing to use the proper pronouns for a transgender student, even after administrators repeatedly instructed him to do so.

Following the vote to terminate, Superintendent Laura Abel released a statement explaining that Vlaming’s actions were clearly in violation of the school’s policies:

The School Board has policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity. As detailed during the course of the public hearing, Mr. Vlaming was recommended for termination due to his insubordination and repeated refusal to comply with directives made to him by multiple WPPS administrators. As superintendent, it is my responsibility to enforce board policy, and due to Mr. Vlaming’s non-compliance I therefore recommended termination.

Vlaming, however, argued that “a specific worldview is being imposed upon me.” He had agreed to use the student’s new name, but tried to avoid using any pronouns to address him directly, which made him feel singled out. The teacher continued used the incorrect female pronouns to refer to him to others, and still also used those incorrect pronouns in his presence.

Vlaming’s attorney, Shawn Voyles — an adjunct professor at Pat Robertson’s Regent University — likewise claimed that Vlaming should be “free from being compelled to speak something that violates your conscience.” He insisted that the school’s gender identity policy was too vague and could not be enforced.

During Thursday’s hearing, Voyles identified the student by name in violation of the privacy agreement set forth beforehand. ThinkProgress reached out to Voyles for comment about this error, and he explained that it was inadvertent and that he had made an effort to redact the student’s name from his exhibits.

Vlaming said he has not yet decided whether he plans to take legal action to challenge the termination. “I have to research how we would do that, what that would entail,” Vlaming said. “I do think it’s a serious question of First Amendment rights.”

Conservative groups are very upset by the termination. The Family Foundation, an anti-LGBTQ organization in Virginia, responded by framing nondiscrimination policies as “being used to punish anyone who does not agree with the ideology of the day and to coerce good people to speak a message they fundamentally disagree with at the threat of their livelihood.”

The Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ hate group, went so far as to claim that affirming transgender kids constitutes “child abuse” — relying on junk science from another anti-LGBTQ hate group. The situation closely mirrors a case recently brought by a professor at Shawnee State University. Like Vlaming, philosophy professor Nicholas Meriwether refused to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns. He was disciplined with a letter in his personnel file, and has since sued the university, claiming that the discipline infringed upon his freedoms of speech and religion.

Earlier this year, Indiana orchestra teacher John Kluge also resigned rather than comply with his school district’s policy of respecting transgender students. He tried to reverse that resignation, but the school did not accept it. Kluge has since filed a tort claim against the district, demanding he be reinstated and allowed to call students only by their last names.

A recent study found that 87 percent of LGBTQ students experienced some kind of direct harassment or assault related to their identity, and that anti-trans remarks from staff have actually increased since 2013. Conversely, it found that LGBTQ students feel safer when staff are supportive and comprehensive nondiscrimination policies are in place.