[Commentary] [USA] Op-ed: Religion Shouldn't Be an Excuse for Discrimination

[Stephanie Stevens]

The Advocate, USA


Op-ed: Religion Shouldn't Be an Excuse for Discrimination

The right to follow a particular religion is a fundamental one for
Americans, but the ACLU says it does not grant a free pass to
discriminate against LGBT people.

BY Ian Thompson

May 21 2013 4:40 AM ET


Following the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in late 2010 and the
successful transition to open service for gay, lesbian, and bisexual
service members in 2011, many assumed that enshrined discrimination
against LGBT people was on its way out.

But some opponents of LGBT equality in Congress have refused to give
up the fight. Now that they could no longer keep lesbians, gay men,
and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, they have
shifted gears. What is their new strategy? To misuse religious liberty
as a license to discriminate.

Religious liberty is one of our nation’s most cherished values, and
something that the American Civil Liberties Union has fought to
safeguard since our founding nearly a century ago. It guarantees us
the freedom to hold any belief we choose and the right to act on our
religious beliefs — but it does not allow us to harm or discriminate
against others.

We’ve seen this play out over the past several years during the annual
debate on the defense bill — known as the National Defense
Authorization Act — in Congress. Those most opposed to DADT repeal and
open service have sought to authorize discrimination against certain
service members based on their sexual orientation under the guise of
religious freedom. Last year then-representative Todd Akin, whose
remarks that pregnancy cannot result from a “legitimate rape” became
infamous during the 2012 election campaign, successfully added an
amendment that required accommodation of all beliefs of members of the
armed forces “concerning the appropriate and inappropriate expression
of human sexuality,” which could have required that the military turn
a blind eye to harassment and discrimination.

Thankfully, this direct attack on open service was not included in the
final version of the defense bill that was sent to President Obama for
his signature. And while Akin is no longer in Congress, these efforts
to enshrine discrimination in the military have a new champion in Rep.
Tim Huelskamp and the misnamed Military Religious Freedom Protection
Act, which would give a green light to discriminate against lesbian,
gay, and bisexual service members.

These anti-LGBT attacks are a naked attempt to give license to
discrimination. These efforts are part of a broader trend that
opponents of LGBT equality are employing with increasing frequency. As
LGBT people gain greater equality under the law — at the local, state,
and, federal levels — opponents argue that because of their religious
beliefs, they need to be given special authorization to break the law
and discriminate. For example, some business owners have refused to
serve same-sex couples who want to buy flowers or a cake to celebrate
their relationships. These businesses claim they should not have to
serve gay couples because they have a religious objection to allowing
same-sex couples to marry or form civil unions. Likewise, we are
seeing a renewed push to expand religious exemptions to laws designed
to end discrimination and ensure access to health care.

It is for this reason that the ACLU as well as a number of LGBT legal
organizations including Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian
Rights, and the Transgender Law Center expressed serious concerns
about the sweeping scope of the religious exemption in the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act when the legislation was reintroduced in
Congress last month. Given that only 16 states have workplace
nondiscrimination laws that are fully inclusive of LGBT people, the
need for ENDA and the importance of it to LGBT people across the
country is without question, and we continue to fight for its passage.

However, ENDA’s current sweeping, unprecedented exemption for
religiously affiliated organizations — far beyond churches,
synagogues, and mosques — could provide a blank check to engage in
employment discrimination against LGBT people, potentially allowing,
for example, a religiously affiliated hospital to fire a transgender
doctor or a religiously affiliated university to terminate a gay
groundskeeper. The exemption gives a stamp of legitimacy to LGBT
discrimination that our civil rights laws have never given to
discrimination based on an individual's race, sex, national origin,
age, or disability. This is not acceptable, and ENDA’s religious
exemption must be narrowed.

Now is the time for the LGBT community to make clear that contorting
religious liberty into a right to discriminate and harm is
incompatible with basic fairness and equality under the law. Today,
discrimination against individuals based on their race, sex, national
origin, age, or disability is almost universally seen as unacceptable.
We did not arrive at this point in a vacuum. This discrimination is
seen as unacceptable because the American people, our elected leaders,
and the courts have made it so. Now, at this critical and defining
moment in our nation’s history, is the time to do the same with
discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

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IAN THOMPSON is a legislative representative on issues related to LGBT
rights in the ACLU's Washington legislative office and can be reached
on Twitter @iantDC.


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