Brian Brown On The Equality Act

"Sponsored by the grossly-misnamed Human Rights Campaign special interest group, HR 3185 is breathtaking in its scope. It would allow gay and lesbian activists to persecute Americans in virtually every area of society — in employment, public accommodations, housing, credit, and a dozen other areas of civil life. Wherever federal law prohibits racial discrimination, it would also prohibit 'discrimination' based on 'sexual orientation and gender identity.' The legislation puts in the crosshairs anyone who believes God created people male and female. It would declare that a traditional view of human sexuality is hateful and bigoted and treat Christians, Jews and other people of faith just as the law treats racists. HR 3185 specifically denies someone who has been targeted the ability to rely on the provisions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a defense against the complaint of discrimination.

"Please act today to help us defeat HR 3185. Click here to send a message to your federal representatives asking them to vote against this dangerous proposal that will result in rampant persecution of Americans in virtually every area of civil life. It is imperative that members of Congress hear immediately that the American people will not tolerate the creation of powerful special rights for one segment of society, and allow them to use the power of the federal government to persecute anyone who disagrees with them." - Hate group leader Brian Brown, who is very upset at the prospect of LGBT Americans being granted the same protections that Christians have enjoyed for over half a century. And note that he evades calling the bill by its name.

WND Writer Defends "Discrimination Is Good" Column On Alan Colmes Show

The clip won't embed here so click over to Alan Colmes and listen to World Net Daily columnist Jesse Lee Peterson defend his claim that discrimination is a good thing. Peterson says he has no problem if a restaurant refuses to serve him because he is black.

The Next Big LGBT Rights Battle

Via the New York Times:

As barriers to same-sex marriage fall across the country, gay rights advocates are planning their next battle on Capitol Hill: a push for sweeping legislation to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination, similar to the landmark Civil Rights Act that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed in 1964. Plans for a so-called comprehensive lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights bill are still in their infancy, and advocates say the campaign could take a decade or longer. With Republicans taking control of the House and the Senate in January, they say the measure has little chance of passing in the next two years. “This will not be an easy struggle,” said Representative David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island, who intends to introduce legislation this spring. “It forces a much larger conversation about our values as a country. Are we going to be a country in which we prohibit discrimination of any kind against individuals based on their sexual orientation?” [snip]

[L]awyers for an array of gay rights and civil rights groups — including the A.C.L.U., the Lambda Legal Defense Fund and the Human Rights Campaign — have been meeting for the past six months to work on a proposed bill. The Human Rights Campaign has been convening focus groups to gauge public opinion on the plan. On Thursday, it issued a report making the case that a broad civil rights bill would “make ours a more equal nation,” as Chad Griffin, the president of the group, wrote. The Center for American Progress, a liberal research organization, will issue its own report next week. The push signals a major change in strategy. For the past 20 years, gay rights advocates have tried, unsuccessfully, to pass much narrower legislation banning discrimination only in employment. Now, with analysts predicting that the Supreme Court will soon legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states, movement leaders have coalesced around the broader approach.

Hit the link and read the full piece.

HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"If you run a public accommodation and use it to refuse service to a minority, you’re on the wrong side of the law (at least since the Civil Rights Movement). So why am I concerned by the latest case of a lesbian couple suing a family business that refused to rent out their property for a same-sex wedding? Simply because they got married elsewhere, with no problems, and because it makes sense to me – as someone interested in a civil society – not to press conflict on culture war issues when a less aggressive and counter-productive strategy is perfectly possible. Also because you deny the New York Post and the victimhood-right a chance to crow about gay suppression of religious freedom. We are winning the argument; we are winning the culture. There’s no point on forcing our opponents to lose face as well as losing the debate. Magnanimity, restraint and gradual progress. It’s gotten us a very long way already. We should trust this strategy to the end." - Andrew Sullivan, writing for his blog.

KENTUCKY: State Warns Noah's Ark Park About Discriminatory Hiring Practices

As I reported here recently, the Noah's Ark theme park being constructed by Ken Ham's Answers In Genesis requires job applicants to sign a pledge that they believe God drowned everybody in the world because he loved them so fucking much. This week the state of Kentucky warned Ham's group that they may not get the demanded $18M in tax breaks if they refuse to hire non-Christians or Christians that simply do not believe in the so-called biblical flood.

State officials and Ark Encounter lawyers have exchanged letters in which the state threatened not to proceed with tax incentives for the park if there was discriminatory hiring practices, a state official confirmed on Wednesday. The letters between the parties came to light after the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader obtained them through open records requests. "We're hoping the state takes a hard look at their position, and changes their position so it doesn't go further than this," Ark Encounter's Executive President Mike Zovath told Reuters. Zovath, who is also co-founder of Answers in Genesis, said that if tax incentives for the project are withdrawn because it does not give written assurances the state now seeks, it would violate the organization's First Amendment and state constitutional rights. Zovath said the state has added a requirement about hiring practices that is not part of the existing tourism tax credits law. But a state official said on Wednesday that everybody knows laws regarding hiring practices and that the states doesn't need to elaborate them for companies seeking incentives.

We totally need a Satanist to apply for a job there.

ACLU Retracts ENDA Support

This afternoon the ACLU joined a growing list of civil rights group that have dropped their support for ENDA due to its gaping religious exemptions. Via press release:

The provision in the current version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that allows religious organizations to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity has long been a source of significant concern to us. Given the types of workplace discrimination we see increasingly against LGBT people, together with the calls for greater permission to discriminate on religious grounds that followed immediately upon the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, it has become clear that the inclusion of this provision is no longer tenable. It would prevent ENDA from providing protections that LGBT people desperately need and would make very bad law with potential further negative effects. Therefore, we are announcing our withdrawal of support for the current version of ENDA. For decades, our organizations have challenged anti-LGBT workplace discrimination in the courts and worked for the passage of inclusive non-discrimination laws at the local, state, and federal level. We do this work because of the devastating toll workplace discrimination has had, and continues to have, on the lives of LGBT people. It is unacceptable that in the year 2014, men and women are forced to hide who they are or whom they love when they go to work.

Co-signing the above statement are Lambda Legal, GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders), the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center. Earlier today the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force also dropped their support for ENDA.

Years and years of hard-fought battles resulted in the Senate passage of ENDA in November 2013 by a vote of 64-32. I exulted in that moment, truly. But no hope of the bill progressing in the GOP-dominated House coupled with the Hobby Lobby ruling means that the entire LGBT rights movement must now focus on having LGBT Americans included under the broad protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Some are loudly arguing that LGBT opposition to ENDA is yet another case of the perfect being the enemy of the good, a cry that was also made when many of us objected after transgender protections were stripped from the 2007 version of ENDA. But as some of you have pointed out, exempting the very people most likely to discriminate from an anti-discrimination bill just does not make sense in the post-Hobby Lobby world.

It's time for all of us to adopt and adapt the slogan of Idaho's activists, who demand that "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" be added to their state's human rights act.

"Add The Four Words" - to the Civil Rights Act Of 1964.