Special Rights!

We hear it a lot that LGBT people are demanding “special rights” when we want equality, when we want to be treated just like everyone else, but what do you call it when a group of people want to be exempt from the law? Exempt from domestic violence laws, exempt from child abuse laws, exempt from autopsies in cases of suspected homicide, being able to refuse full prescriptions or provide healthcare, and just about any other law, would you call that “special rights?”

Well that is what is happening around the country with states passing broad religious exemption laws,

Some conservatives urging right not to serve gays on religious grounds
Washington Post
By Sandhya Somashekhar
December 17, 2014

Conservative lawmakers in states nationwide are pushing to expand the right of individuals and businesses to not provide certain services to same-sex couples on religious grounds.

In North Carolina, a state legislator has proposed allowing government workers to recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples even though such unions are now legal. A bill in Texas would permit voters to amend the state constitution in a way that supporters say would enhance religious liberty but that critics warn would harm the civil rights of gays and others.

A legislative fight is underway in Michigan, where the state House recently passed a set of contentious religious liberty bills, including some that would allow adoption agencies to refuse placements that violate their faith.

To me that seems like granting special privileges to religious organizations, to place them above the law.

James D. Esseks, director of the LGBT and AIDS project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said forces that oppose gay rights and were unable to stop the legalization of same-sex marriage in the courts and state houses have turned to a new strategy. They are “using religious freedom arguments in an effort to justify anti-gay discrimination because they want to ensure LGBT equality doesn’t affect them,” he said.

These laws could open up a huge gap in the way laws are enforced, one set of laws for atheists, and another set of laws “believers.” You can just about find in the Bible or other scriptures something to justify any discrimination or any behavior.

At one time we were a nation of one law, but now that is no long true.