The Religious Right Must Now Export Its Hatred

The Religious Right’s Must Now Export Homohatred

The 1970’s saw a rise in Black Awareness, Soul Train, The Jacksons had a cartoon show, Diana Ross went solo, Nixon got into the White House, Donnie Hathaway and Roberta Flack did countless duos together, AM Radio was king and one of the growing problems through the 1960’s The Vietnam War came to a close as it went Communist in 1975—our involvement made the difference. In the face of all these things, another movement was picking up

Reverend Jerry Fallwell and Anita Bryant were instrumental parts of the Moral Majority. These were people who felt that the sexual revolution, the Civil Rights Struggle, the Flower Children and The Gay Rights Movement had come to power and were going to tear up the good and decent fabric of this country. That’s when we saw a Moral Majority sweep the nation on TV, on the radio, in campaign posters, evening news, wherever there was a mic and a camera there they were

In 1978, after Anita Bryant led a successful campaign to repeal Miami-Dade ordinance that protected gays in employment, housing and public accommodations they took their act to Eugene, OR Wichita, KS and St. Paul, MN where they repeated their string of victories. Gay rights at the time were a golden rod issue to mobilize and values voters who were homohaters and those who just felt icky about the thought of homosexuals kissing. Unfortunately, many people of good will were found to have no good will when it came to gays and the picture being painted out on television

One of their first BRUISING defeats came in the Supreme Court in 1996. After repealing any and all kinds of laws that protected gay people from discrimination from sea to shining sea, the voters of CO approved Amendment 2 in 1992 that said the following

Neither the State of Colorado, through any of its branches or departments, nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions, municipalities or school districts, shall enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis of or entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination. This Section of the Constitution shall be in all respects self-executing.

With this now in the bag, they could not only roll back any protections but forbid any new ones from being adopted . This had to have the religious right creaming their jeans. If that law was upheld, it would’ve been Hobby Lobby much sooner.

Then came Lawrence v. Texas (2003) where sodomy laws between adults were scrapped, then Section 3 of DOMA struck down and Prop 8 overturned on procedural grounds. The main laws they trusted in to show their superiority over gays are now history and with DOMA the state constitutional bans are falling like dominoes. The Religious Right is now effectively dead in the water in federal court on gay rights issues. They may have a clamp in a lot of Legislatures in this country but for the most part, the party’s over. One Million Moms can’t even effectively boycott Sears and Starbucks! If you want your company to spike in the next quarter, just irk NOM or One Million Moms or American Family Association….unless you’re spineless like Lowe’s

So what do they do? Go to Eastern European nations like Latvia and send Scott Lively to train people like David Bahati & Pastor Mark Ssempa to confront gay rights activists with…VEGETABLES…yes, the incriminating evidence of homosexuality must be if you have penile shaped vegetables and if you sniff another man because that’s what homosexual guys do when they’re having sex, then eat the poo poo! No, I’m not kidding, he actually thinks gays eat poo poo…from his “research”. You go to another backward country that has a high poverty rate, indoctrinated by an Un African book, and say export your theocracy! See, if Iran was a Christian nation, Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum would vacation there every year!

They are going to places that were like the US before 1962 when IL became the first state to repeal its sodomy laws and trying to put in place those same draconian laws in order to prevent Africa from becoming a place that is receptive to gay rights. By painting homosexuality as Un-African and using the rhetoric that American evangelicals used and is lambasted here by reasonable people,  they pushed through the anti-homosexuality bill and on December 20^th just in time for Christmas it was passed with great fanfare

In the meantime, hundreds of Africans were killed, targeted for murder by large mobs and even after they left their country of origin, denied asylum in Western countries despite the widespread knowledge of what was going on. Yet, there is a group fighting in those countries, Uganda in particular.

SMUG—Sexual Minorities Uganda had challenged the law in the Uganda Constitutional Court they wanted to reach the merits of the law and have it null and void due to the content of the law. The Constitutional Court, like the United States Supreme Court dodged the merits by pointing to a procedural violation. It wasn’t given a quorum—a hearing where citizens could voice their support or opposition to the proposed bill

While this is a victory, I am sure there will be an appeal to their Supreme Court. Whatever happens from here the world will be watching Uganda. The law will be gone if it is fully overturned as unconstitutional, but like the Religious Right here they will attack the impartiality of the judges, and fight to get more people appointed in their philosophy. They will head to Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East & Eastern Europe, wherever they can find an audience…let’s not forget Russia too.  They lost here with the growing ideological exhaustion of the Reagan and Bush eras and growing liberalization of the country due to the extreme nature of Teapublicans and the ever widening gap between the rich and poor.  They will lose in Uganda too, it will take longer but they will lose