"Save Religious Freedom!" (Update, Update II)

That's the new version of Anita Bryant's "Save the Children!" campaign from the 1970s, and it's having the same effect on gay-inclusive civil rights legislation. The call is coming from the usual suspects -- the Catholic bishops, the "family" organizations (if you've ever checked out their websites, you discover very quickly that almost none of them have any programs of their own to help families -- in most cases, the best you're going to come up with are links to other organizations), the watchdogs to preserve "Christian" supremacy. As far as I'm concerned, these demands for "religious" exemptions to marriage laws, and now ENDA, are pretty much superfluous -- there's no way you can force a church or minister to officiate or host and same-sex wedding if it's against their doctrine -- and, as they grow broader, pernicious.

There are limits on rights and freedoms -- otherwise, society doesn't work. It can't, at least not the kind of society we have here. If one group or person has unlimited rights, unlimited freedom, that's dictatorship. That's what the "Christian" right is after.

Michelangelo Signorile has a good piece up at HuffPo examining this issue in relation to ENDA. The key point:

But ENDA has a problem: a disturbing religious exemption that has been included in the bill in one form or another ever since it was first introduced in 1994 -- light years ago in terms of the speed of LGBT progress -- and by gay advocates themselves, to appease conservative, religious Democrats and Republicans. In that regard, they haven't updated ENDA for 2013. And really, the exemption should never have been in this civil rights legislation in first place, as The New York Times pointed out in an editorial this week:

The exemption would extend beyond churches and other houses of worship to any religiously affiliated institution, like hospitals and universities, and would allow those institutions to discriminate against people in jobs with no religious function, like billing clerks, cafeteria workers and medical personnel. The exemption -- which was inserted to appease some opponents who say the act threatens religious freedom -- is a departure from the approach of earlier civil rights laws.

So a Catholic school teacher who's done a great job for years could still be fired under ENDA if the school's principal discovers that she is a lesbian.

That's already happening -- and not just in red states like Arkansas -- it's also happened in Minnesota and in California. The message here is clear -- stay in the closet if you want to keep your job.

(There's a related issue here, of course -- how much of your life is your employer's business? That's a really broad one, and I'm not going to deal with it here, but keep it in mind -- it's important, if for no other reason than that it stems from the same sort of authoritarian mindset we're seeing in the "religious exemption" claims.)

One can only hope that the overreach on this will come sooner rather than later -- and there will be overreach. I'm waiting for the first lawsuit alleging that the "religious" exemptions in a gay or trans civil rights law violate someone's religious freedom. After all, what sauce for the goose. . . .

Update: Here's another discussion of the "religious" exemptions from Ari Ezra Waldman at Towleroad, with some reference to the position of our "advocacy groups" on the issue:

According to BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner, spokespersons for the Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work, and the ACLU all had the same basic response: Senator Portman's amendment is "unnecessary." The ACLU went a bit further in its conversations with Mr. Geidner, mentioning that the exemption in ENDA would be "unprecedented." But despite some groups, like the ACLU, raising concerns about the religious exemptions, Chris Johnson of the Washington Blade shows us that there is simply no urgency, no stomach for a fight over the religious exemptions. Our community's goal, Mr. Johnson discovers, is merely to raise the issue. The ACLU told Mr. Johnson that "it’s certainly [their] hope more and more pro-equality members of Congress and their staff will come to understand the potential harm of the current exemption."

That's it?

HRC, Freedom to Work, and ACLU leaders are engaging in the art of the possible. ENDA needs 60 votes to pass. To get sixty votes, it needs Republicans. To get a sufficient number of those Republicans, it needs to pay homage to religious liberty. To fight against that political reality is at once silly and dangerous to the organizations' future influence.

But no one is talking about what today's cavalier approach will mean for tomorrow's fights.

Needless to say, that approach seems to me, as it does to Waldman, both short-sighted and eventually harmful. What needs to be done it to characterize those religious exemptions as overly broad and infringing on the rights of others -- an attempt at religious supremacy.

Update II: Zack Ford has a pretty devastating run-down on the US Catholic Bishop's objections to ENDA. The Bishops, of course, don't believe in "unjust" discrimination, but their discrimination against LGBTs is just. Just ask them.

Bait and Switch?

Interesting to notice that, with all the foofooraw over DADT repeal, an inclusive ENDA is moving forward, relatively quietly.

Interesting because, in general, ENDA is a much more dicey affair, particularly with the "T" inclusion -- say what you will, but the religious right's "men in dresses" mantra does have an effect. DADT repeal is basically a no-brainer, but it's instructive to see the display of relative power in this -- White House vs. Pentagon. Let's face it, the main resistance to repeal is coming from the upper brass. We can question Obama's commitment to repeal (and I do, believe me -- I don't think his support was ever more than slightly above lip service), but we have to ask ourselves why that support is so wobbly. I think it's the Pentagon, which is exerting its influence on the White House, and that, in conjunction with DoJ, which doesn't seem to have gotten the gay rights memo, and whatever political homophobes are advising the president, is probably going to scuttle DADT repeal.

Congress is reluctant to do anything without some show of support from the WH, the WH isn't going to move because of the generals, and the generals are playing a waiting game hoping to scuttle the whole thing.

In the meantime, Congress, not willing to move on DADT without some visible support from the WH, is quietly getting ENDA ready for floor vote. It's doubtful that it will not pass the House; the sticker, as always, is the Senate, where a combination of a Democratic minority (to their way of thinking, at least), a fair number of fossils on both sides of the aisle, and a determination among the Republican leadership that nothing will pass without great rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, may very well stall it. (Happily, both my senators are on record as supporting both ENDA and DADT repeal. What I need is for them to get right up in Mitch McConnell's face.) But who knows? It could very well sail right through -- the only corporate interest involved is the corporate religious right. It's not like Bank of America or WellPoint are going to be lobbying against it.

There will be a quiz on this next time.

Time to Push for ENDA

Having missed the blogswarm on whatever we were swarming about (although I think I still have today left), I feel honor bound to post the following: it's time to put some pressure on Congress to get ENDA out of committee and to the floor for a vote. It's the sort of thing that should be a no-brainer, except there are too many in Congress who don't see us as people. Sign. Stand up for yourselves, and for your friends, your brothers and sisters, your parents, your neighbors, your co-workers. If one of us lacks full rights, we are all poorer for it.

Dear Speaker Nancy Pelosi --

With health care legislation passing, now is the time to institute workplace protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people by passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Rep. Tammy Baldwin says she believes that we have the votes to pass ENDA, and Rep. George Miller has said the bill is ready to come out of committee now that the health care bill has passed. As Speaker of the House of Representatives, we call on you to act boldly and decisively and bring ENDA to the floor for a vote now.

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And pass the word -- it will be especially valuable if your representative hears from you directly.

Blogswarm on ENDA

I'm getting to this late, but it's looking pretty massive. I'm joining The Bilerico Project, Daily Kos, Open Left, Americablog, Towleroad, Joe My God, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Daily Gotham, Culture Kitchen, Taylor Marsh, PageOneQ, Dan Savage, GoodAsYou, Joe.My.God and many other sites in demanding action on ENDA.

It's simple: Call Speaker Pelosi (202-225-4965) and demand, in your best "best little boy in the world" manner, action on ENDA, HB 3017. We've been stalled enough. It' stupid to make people vulnerable in the workplace for dismissal because of other people's prejudice. That's not the way we do things in this country.

They're tallying results, so let them know the results of your call here.

And here is the post that gives the background.