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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Bigot's Lament
http://www.thenation.com/article/178820/bigots-lamentOpponents of Senate Bill 1062 at the Arizona Capitol, Phoenix, February 21 (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Whether talking secession, hoarding bitcoin or refusing to expand Medicaid, the American right these days is obsessed with opting out of a society that its members increasingly see as an assault on their way of life. Their latest attempt to liberate themselves from the polity was Arizonas SB 1062, a bill that would have exempted individuals and businesses from state law if it burdened their exercise of religion. The legislation did not single out lesbians and gays, but it was plainly motivated by anti-gay animus. Recognizing as much, corporations like Apple, AT&T and Intel, as well as the Super Bowl Host Committee, condemned the measure, and the threat of a statewide boycott prompted the states Chamber of Commerce to go to DefCon 1 against it. Critics also pointed out that the bill was gratuitous; its already legal in Arizona to refuse to do business with gay customers. All of which was enough to convince Republican Governor Jan Brewer to veto the bill on February 26.
This turn of events has merely reinforced the Christian rights conviction that it is they who are the victims of, as Michele Bachmann put it, a terrible intolerance. At The New York Times, house conservative Ross Douthat foresees a kind of anti-Christian Hunger Games in which the defeated religious right waits to find out what settlement the victors will impose. And what exactly will this reaping entail? Homophobes will be marginalized and encouraged to conform. Religiously affiliated schools and agencies will be required to follow the same laws as everyone else or forfeit their tax-exempt status. Christian businesses will be forced to bake cakes and make bouquets for gay weddingsand what could be a worse fate for someone who specializes in the comely arrangement of frosting or flowers? Douthat casts all of this as a fait accompli, magicked into existence by the Supreme Court and a bit of vicious fairy power. And while he claims he doesnt mean to sound self-pityingnobody should call it persecution, he writesthat is, of course, precisely what he intends.
So why cant gays accept a polite culture war truce by letting the dissenters opt out?
First, the forces behind Arizonas SB 1062 dont just want to be left alone to exalt heterosexual marriages. The Alliance Defending Freedom, the Scottsdale-based group that helped draft the bill, opposes same-sex marriage, gay parenting and adoption, and abortion in all cases. It filed an amicus brief in Lawrence v. Texas arguing that gay sodomy should remain a crime. More recently, it provided counsel to Yelena Mizulina, one of the legislators behind Russias anti-gay propaganda law, and spent over $1.5 million last year on human rights legal work for groups outside the United States. If the Alliance had its way, gays and lesbians would be a globally criminalized people, hounded from public life both by private discrimination and the state police apparatus.
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The Bigot's Lament (Original Post)
xchrom
Mar 2014
OP
Read what this 'foundation' is about and who's involved. Just stunning in the predictability.
CurtEastPoint
Mar 2014
#1
CurtEastPoint
(18,649 posts)1. Read what this 'foundation' is about and who's involved. Just stunning in the predictability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_Defending_Freedom
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF, formerly Alliance Defense Fund) is an American conservative Christian nonprofit organization with the stated goal of "defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation."[1] ADF was founded in 1994 by Bill Bright (founder, Campus Crusade for Christ), Larry Burkett (founder, Crown Financial Ministries), James Dobson (founder, Focus on the Family), D. James Kennedy (founder, Coral Ridge Ministries), Marlin Maddoux (president, International Christian Media), and Donald Wildmon (founder, American Family Association), along with the leadership of over thirty other conservative Christian organizations.[2]
ADF's President, CEO, and General Counsel is Alan Sears. Sears was previously a Justice Department official under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, and has co-authored two books with Craig Osten: The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today and The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values.
Major donors for the organization include the Covenant Foundation, the Bolthouse Foundation[7] and the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, whose vice president is Blackwater Worldwide founder Erik Prince.[8]
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF, formerly Alliance Defense Fund) is an American conservative Christian nonprofit organization with the stated goal of "defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation."[1] ADF was founded in 1994 by Bill Bright (founder, Campus Crusade for Christ), Larry Burkett (founder, Crown Financial Ministries), James Dobson (founder, Focus on the Family), D. James Kennedy (founder, Coral Ridge Ministries), Marlin Maddoux (president, International Christian Media), and Donald Wildmon (founder, American Family Association), along with the leadership of over thirty other conservative Christian organizations.[2]
ADF's President, CEO, and General Counsel is Alan Sears. Sears was previously a Justice Department official under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, and has co-authored two books with Craig Osten: The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today and The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values.
Major donors for the organization include the Covenant Foundation, the Bolthouse Foundation[7] and the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, whose vice president is Blackwater Worldwide founder Erik Prince.[8]
Cirque du So-What
(25,941 posts)2. Talk about a rogue's gallery!
So infamous are these characters that I recognized every single name in that litany of bigotry.
CurtEastPoint
(18,649 posts)4. I know! I was blown away. It's the Who'sWho of assholery!
Mornin', sunshine!
xchrom
(108,903 posts)5. DAH-LINK!11 i'm Dressed for Sunday...
Heidi
(58,237 posts)6. Be still my heart!
You look divine, dah-link! Simply divine! :air kiss:
Gothmog
(145,303 posts)7. The majority is not being discriminated against when the rights of the minority are respected
The angst of the right wing Christian types is sad.