It says government must keep out religion, but it doesn’t say about religion influencing government and attacking the “immorals!”
Advocacy groups condemn Alliance Defending Freedom as ‘a danger to every American who values their freedoms’The GuardianAdam GabbattJune 19, 2023With the US besieged by a rightwing culture war campaign that aims to strip away rights from LGBTQ+ people and others, blame tends to be focused on Republican politicians and conservative media figures.But lurking behind efforts to roll back abortion rights, to demonize trans people, and to peel back the protections afforded to gay and queer Americans is a shadowy, well-funded rightwing legal organization, experts say.Since it was formed in 1994, Alliance Defending Freedom has been at the center of a nationwide effort to limit the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people, all in the name of Christianity. The Southern Poverty Law Center has termed it an “anti-LGBTQ hate group” that has extended its tentacles into nearly every area of the culture wars.
Their goal is to make a “Christian Nation!”
They want to criminalize “immorals” and they already banned abortions!
Through “model legislation” and lawsuits filed across the country, ADF aims to overturn same-sex marriage, enact a total ban on abortion, and strip away the already minimal rights that trans people are afforded in the US.
What is next? Criminalize unmarried women?
ADF is engaged in “a very strong campaign to put a certain type of religious view at the center of American life”, said Rabia Muqaddam, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
This is the future that the Republican dream about.
“They enacted a law that they knew was unconstitutional, they enacted it for the purpose of generating case after case after case to push it out to the supreme court until they found a court that was sympathetic to their argument,” Muqaddam said.She added: “I think that’s exactly what is happening in the LGBTQ context as well. Their goal is to limit individual rights as much as possible.”
One nation under God!
“They go under the guise of religious liberty, and religious freedom. What that means, though, is this religious liberty to discriminate and the religious freedom to invalidate LGBTQ individuals,” Hodges said.
And remember they packed the Supreme Court with Evangelical Christians.
An article on ADF’s website states that it is a “biblical truth” that “men and women are physically different”, and the organization has duly worked to prevent trans people taking part in women’s sports.
Do they want women in the out of the workplace and in the kitchen pregnant in some type of new “Father Know Best” world?
“[ADF’s] obsession with targeting LGBTQ people is unhinged and drastically out of touch with supermajorities of Americans who support LGBTQ people and laws to protect us from discrimination,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and chief executive of Glaad.“Everyone should understand the truth: the ADF is simply an anti-LGBTQ group trying to abuse levers of government to push discrimination and keep their warped sense of control.
They want to make a Christian Taliban nation.
The latest Supreme Court case establishes two sets of laws!
Los Angels TimesBy Xiao WangJune 18, 2023Looking for a federal law to be declared unconstitutional? Religion may well be your best bet — and that’s true regardless of how “real” your religious beliefs are.That’s part of the thinking behind one case the Supreme Court heard this session and will resolve soon. In 303 Creative vs. Elenis, the court is considering the constitutionality of a Colorado statute prohibiting most businesses from discriminating against LGBTQ+ customers. Lori Smith, a Christian webpage designer, had wanted to expand into the wedding website business — but only for opposite-sex couples, a plan that would have violated the Colorado law at issue. Her lawyers made the case on free speech grounds, but given Smith’s religious beliefs, “religious freedom” represents an undeniable backdrop to the suit.The 303 Creative case is no outlier. Religion-based claims have proliferated in recent years, and plaintiffs have often won because courts have almost invariably found their religious beliefs to be sincerely held. Meanwhile, the burden of proof for the government — that it is not unduly interfering in religious practice — has become much harder to prove.A string of recent Supreme Court cases demonstrates how religion offers litigants a ready path to disobey laws without consequence. In the 2021-22 term alone, the Supreme Court decided several high-profile cases that affirmed religion’s supremacy.
Say the “Secret Word” and you don’t have to obey the laws!
Today, many claims for “free exercise of religion” arise under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. I conducted a systematic review of roughly 350 such cases decided by the Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts over the last 30 years. Since the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, the Supreme Court has always found plaintiffs sincere. Lower federal appellate courts found plaintiffs sincere in 270 out of 291 (93%) cases from 1994 to June 2022.
Tell me what is going to happen when a single woman with a child is refused an apartment? What will happen a Muslim is refused service in a restaurant? What will happen when a business tells a Black man to use a “Black Only” restroom and they say the Secret Words “because it violates my firmly held religious beliefs?”
Fixing the abuse of this criterion won’t be simple, especially with a deeply divided Congress and a conservative stronghold on the Supreme Court. But change is needed, or litigants will continue to use religion as a pretense to break the law.
Be ready for a real big, biggie ruling coming down from the Supreme Court this week before the session ends on the 30th.
CNN writes...
Can businesses deny services to LGBTQ customers?At the center of another case is a graphic designer, Lorie Smith, who seeks to expand her business and create custom websites to celebrate weddings – but does not want to work with gay couples out of religious objections to same-sex marriage.Smith has not yet moved forward with her new business venture because of Colorado’s public accommodations law. Under the law, a business may not refuse to serve individuals because of their sexual orientation. Smith, whose company is called 303 Creative LLC, said that she is willing to work with all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, but she draws the line at creating websites that celebrate same-sex marriage because expressing such a message would be inconsistent with her beliefs.The state and supporters of LGBTQ rights say that Smith is simply seeking a license to discriminate.The conservatives on the court were sympathetic at oral arguments to those put forward by Smith’s lawyer. They viewed the case through the lens of free speech and suggested that an artist or someone creating a customized product could not be forced by the government to express a message that violates her religious beliefs.
SCOTUS really has opened a Pandora's Box when it says a person is exercising freedom of religion when choosing not to serve a patron. What has not been explained is anyone is free to establish his or her own religion with certain tenants of faith that limits interaction with anyone he or she chooses. If his or her faith does not believe there should be interracial marriages, then he or she can refuse services? Where will it end?
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