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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen ‘Religious Liberty’ Was Used To Justify Racism Instead Of Homophobia
The most remarkable thing about Arizonas License To Discriminate bill is how quickly it became anathema, even among Republicans. Both 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney called upon Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to veto this effort to protect businesses that want to discriminate against gay people. So did Arizonas other senator, Jeff Flake. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Indeed, three state senators who voted for this very bill urged Brewer to veto it before she finally did so on Wednesday, confessing that they made a mistake when they voted for it to become law.
The premise of the bill is that discrimination becomes acceptable so long as it is packaged inside a religious wrapper. As Arizona state Rep. Eddie Farnsworth (R) explained, lawmakers introduced it in response to instances where anti-gay business owners in other states were punished for their religious beliefs after they denied service to gay customers in violation of a state anti-discrimination law.
Yet, while LGBT Americans are the current target of this effort to repackage prejudice as religious liberty, they are hardly the first. To the contrary, as Wake Forest law Professor Michael Kent Curtis explained in a 2012 law review article, many segregationists justified racial bigotry on the very same grounds that religious conservatives now hope to justify anti-gay animus. In the words of one professor at a prominent Mississippi Baptist institution, our Southern segregation way is the Christian way . . . . [God] was the original segregationist.
God Of The Segregationists
Theodore Bilbo was one of Mississippis great demagogues. After two non-consecutive terms as governor, Bilbo won a U.S. Senate seat campaigning against farmer murderers, corrupters of Southern womanhood, [skunks] who steal Gideon Bibles from hotel rooms and a host of other, equally colorful foes. In a year where just 47 Mississippi voters cast a ballot for a communist candidate, Bilbo railed against a looming communist takeover of the state and offered himself up as the solution to this red onslaught.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/26/3333161/religious-liberty-racist-anti-gay/
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)William769
(55,147 posts)Even as a kid these people scared me. I didn't know why at the time I just felt really uncomfortable around them. To my joy, as I got older & saw the light I got the hell out of there and never looked backed.
All I remember them preaching was why I was going to hell if I didn't walk the straight & narrow. As if I could ever walk straight!
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Raised in a super-conservative Southern Baptist Church. The light bulb switched on for me at a young age during one specific Sunday school service. My sister and I were being lectured on children and the nature of sin. Our Sunday school teacher told us, as an example, that when a baby cried it was a sin. When I asked why, she said because it was an example of selfishness, i.e., that the baby was only thinking of itself! My sis and I exchanged glances but continued to ask questions. I asked if a baby died before it had a chance to be saved, or maybe it lived in another country and had never heard of Jesus, would it go to hell? When I was told that it would, I asked why and she simply replied, "That's not God's fault if a baby has never heard of Jesus, it's our fault for not having spread the word." Even though my sis and I were only about 7 and 10 at the time, we both knew that was absolutely freaking bonkers. I left all that nonsense as soon as I got old enough to decide for myself (actually, I got removed from the church roll for actively opposing the Vietnam War) and my sister became a Methodist.
Now maybe that particular Sunday School teacher was at the extreme end of the spectrum (understatement), but even my tender brain could figure out that what I was being told made absolutely no rational or compassionate sense. Besides, I wanted to grow up to be a paleontologist and they kept telling me that fossils were planted by the Devil just to trick us.
Beartracks
(12,819 posts)... of scaring people with things found only way out at the ends of the bell curve of society.
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Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)mzteris
(16,232 posts)Subjugate women.
sheshe2
(83,829 posts)I was just going to post it, but did a search first to see if else had.
Lo and behold, here it is. Thanks for the Op.
William769
(55,147 posts)And thanks for searching.
Response to William769 (Original post)
William769 This message was self-deleted by its author.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#Justification
I see the present day anti-LGBT supporters in the same light.