There’s a silver lining in the religious right’s onslaught of discrimination

[rug]

When religious groups go so far out of the way to shun LGBT people and women that we all feel the pain, it makes us all care more about injustice

Adam Lee
Tuesday 4 August 2015 10.45 EDT

The American religious right is more determined than ever to discriminate - and that may be a good thing. It means that the privileged can no longer overlook the impact of prejudice. They no longer have the luxury of overlooking it or dismissing it as something that’s none of their concern.

Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian college in Illinois, announced last week that it was dropping health insurance for all its students rather than comply with Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Under the compromise offered by the Obama administration, religious employers that object to birth control can notify their insurer, who then provides it to covered individuals without involving the employer, but Wheaton argued that even having to state their objection was an intolerable violation of their religious conscience - a claim that would undoubtedly lead to chaos if it were widely accepted.

Along the same lines, since the US supreme court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in Obergefell v Hodges, some county clerks and probate judges in conservative states like Kentucky and Alabama have have announced that they’ll no longer issue marriage licenses to anyone, gay or straight, rather than face a discrimination lawsuit they’d be certain to lose for turning away a same-sex couple.

Even before landmark rulings like Obergefell, religious groups were engaging in this massive-resistance strategy. Catholic charities have shut down in both the US and the UK, ending services like adoption assistance and foster care, so as not to have to give benefits to same-sex partners of employees or consider same-sex couples as prospective parents. Catholic schools are also notorious for firing popular gay teachers and principals in the face of protests by students - and some are responding by making their morality clauses even more draconian.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/04/theres-a-silver-lining-in-the-religious-rights-onslaught-of-discrimination

[AtheistCrusader]

1. Yet, you complain it's stereotyping when we call out your church directly.

Trying to have it both ways today?

[rug]

2. "We" who?

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Those of us that posted critical stuff about the RCC.

You seemed to have a problem with a few of us in particular, our sig lines seemed to have a common thread. So you can just extrapolate from there.

[rug]

4. There's lots of people who criticize the RCC. Most do it intelligently.

"You" (whoever that is) do not, judging by the posts I've seen.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. 'who are you to judge'?

[Starboard Tack]

7. Why the VNN of course

Last edited Thu Aug 6, 2015, 10:25 AM - Edit history (1)

I love how they all wear their colors. Very foxy.

[cleanhippie]

8. Wear, not where.

Where is used to describe location, such as "where exactly is it that you live 'basically homeless' when not in your Italian villa?"

[Starboard Tack]

9. What would we do without Your Cleanliness to help us fight the evil Spellchecker?

And it isn't a villa, but many villas and an entire fleet of mega yachts. What we call being "homeless Mediterranean style". You should come visit some time, but you'll have to leave your guns at home, along with the attitude. You never know, it might inspire Your Cleanliness to indulge in an even deeper cleansing.

[pinto]

6. I've thought the same, at times, as extremism becomes more blatant, petty and well publicized.

There's still a ways to go to put it mildly. Yet I think the road to equality for all has become clearer. I'm talking first and foremost about the "average" American along with the various court rulings about discrimination.