Among the many things that dominate the political scene are the use of euphemisms and the prevalence of lawyers. If you want to see examples of both, look no further than a movement on the part of some Republican lawmakers to try pass laws that will pitch discrimination as religious freedom. Talking Points Memo brings it all together:
The growing specter of legalized gay marriage, which has been advanced by numerous court decisions starting with the Supreme Court’s overturning of the federal Defense of Marriage Act last year, seems to have put a scare in GOP lawmakers.
So they’ve started legislating, introducing a string of similar bills that claim to defend religious liberty, but would effectively allow for lawful discrimination against same-sex couples by businesses or government employees on religious grounds.
The bills have appeared in Congress and at least six state legislatures. One cleared the Kansas House last week and a South Dakota House committee is scheduled to consider another Wednesday, while a Tennessee Senate committee at least temporarily killed its bill Tuesday. Advocates say that they combine to form a newly invigorated push for anti-gay discrimination.
“We’re seeing an expansion, or a proliferation, of this effort,” Jennifer Pizer, director of the law and policy project at Lambda Legal, the civil rights group that advocates for gay rights, told TPM. “This is a more aggressive, or maybe it’s desperate, but certainly a more aggressive approach.”
“With more states allowing same-sex couples to marry, with more courts vindicating these constitutional claims, it is definitely inspiring more aggressive backlash by the groups that see those court decisions as indicating that the tide is against them.”
It’s all seems to be about trying to find a way to get around the Supreme Court:
The catalyst, it seems, was the Supreme Court’s DOMA decision in June. U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) introduced a bill in September that would prohibit the federal government from “taking an adverse action” against any person if their actions are based on their religious belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman. U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the essentially same bill in that chamber in December, but both have languished in committee.
And then in the last three months, same-sex marriage bans in three states (Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia) have been overturned, citing the DOMA decision.
Now legislation has popped up in Kansas, South Dakota and Tennessee in the last few weeks, which would give private businesses and individual government workers the right to deny services to same-sex couples if it would violate their “sincerely held religious beliefs,” as both the Kansas and Tennessee bills put it.
TPM also details some other examples and other ongoing legal attempts to try and get around the court decision.
This isn’t surprising. This is the way our politics works. Then those who agree with partisans will pick up the political mantra and it echoes in an echo chamber.
But it’s sort of like how “used cars” became a bad word from a p.r. standpoint, so it became “pre-owned cars.”
Everyone knows it’s a used car.
And in the case of these laws that are pitched as championing religious freedom, everyone knows (you fill in the blank)…
The Week has an interesting take on the issue of gay marriage:
The suggestion sounds ludicrous: How could Christianity be responsible for the all-but-assured triumph of the movement for gay marriage? Aren’t the most committed Christians the most passionate defenders of traditional marriage and hence the most ardent opponents of permitting gay couples to marry?
From the overwhelming support for traditional marriage among white evangelical Protestants in the United States to the Catholic Church’s definition of homosexuality as “intrinsically disordered” to the black (Catholic and Anglican) Christians of Uganda who have recently worked to pass one of the most draconian anti-gay laws in the world, the answer would seem to be yes.
But things aren’t quite so simple. Just flip through the opening pages of everyone’s favorite work of secular prophesy — Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835–1840) — and you’ll find a provocative alternative interpretation of Christianity’s indispensable role in the creation of the revolutionary ideal of human equality. The stunningly rapid rise of support for gay marriage over the past two decades is just the latest in a very long line of victories for that consummately Christian ideal — and it’s unlikely to be the last.
Go to the link to read the rest.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.