Free Republic

The United States Commission on Civil Rights strongly condemns recent state laws passed, and proposals being considered, under the guise of so-called “religious liberty” which target members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“LGBT”) community for discrimination. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory recently signed into law H.B. 2, legislation blocking local governments from passing anti-discrimination rules that grant protections to gay and transgender persons. The law also repeals existing municipal anti-discrimination laws which protected LGBT people from bias in housing and employment. Critically, the new legislation also forces transgender people to utilize public bathrooms and changing facilities based on...

The New Yorker‘s James Surowiecki writes this week about how Big Business has been a massively effective force for gay rights. He writes that progressives are used to seeing Big Business as the bad guy, but the pro-LGBT activist role corporations have taken on complicates matters. More:

Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Republican presidential candidate Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) said religious liberty laws that allow refusal of services based on sexual orientation like the ones vetoed in Georgia and passed in North Carolina and Mississippi are unnecessary.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed a controversial bill into law on Tuesday that could allow businesses and government workers to deny services to lesbian and gay couples. Bryant said in a statement that he was signing HB 1523 “to protect sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions of individuals, organizations and private associations from discriminatory action by state government or its political subdivisions.”

Lionsgate and the A+E network say they won’t film TV shows and movies in North Carolina if the state doesn’t repeal its new LGBT law. Along with Fox, Miramax and The Weinstein Company, the entertainment producers have voiced opposition to House Bill 2, which replaces local ordinances with a statewide nondiscrimination law that doesn’t include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories.

For evangelical voters, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Not in Georgia, at least. When Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, first heard that Governor Nathan Deal had vetoed a controversial religious-liberty bill, his phone exploded with text messages. HB-757 was seen by many as a modest attempt to safeguard religious freedoms, stating, for example, that pastors could not be forced to perform same-sex weddings. Naturally, faith leaders across the state were furious, and Moore quickly became a sounding board.

5th UPDATE, 6:25 PM: Now Amblin Partners has joined the anti-Georgia chorus over the state’s pending religious liberty legislation. “Amblin Partners is committed to diversity and inclusion for all,” the company led by Steven Spielberg. “We would be disappointed to see our pipeline of production end at the Georgia border because of this legislation. While we are aware that Governor Deal has not yet made a decision, we stand with our industry colleagues in strongly urging him to veto this bill.”

Used to be that the Republican coalition was made up of free marketers, libertarians, social and religious conservatives, and national security hawks. Their commonalities, versus the Democratic Party’s coalition, made it possible for them to elide their differences. Besides, when it got right down to it, most religious and social conservatives (wrongly) didn’t see any particular threat to their values from capitalism.

Over two days, virtually every major Hollywood production house has come out against Georgia’s “religious liberty” bill, calling on Gov. Nathan Deal to veto the legislation that passed last week. New York-based Time Warner, which oversees Atlanta’s Turner Entertainment and CNN operations, said the bill “clearly violates the values and principles of inclusion and the ability of all people to live and work free from discrimination.” The Weinstein Company – known for its array of Oscar-winning films – said it “will not stand behind sanctioning the discrimination of‎ LGBT people or any American.” Others who have jumped in against the...

One day after Disney announced that it would take its business elsewhere if Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signs into law a bill that would permit faith-based groups and organizations in the state to discriminate based on sexuality, one of the Peach State’s biggest media players has stepped into the debate. Today, Time Warner urged the Republican Peach State official to stop the Free Exercise Protection Act in its tracks.

Disney has made big movies like the upcoming Captain America: Civil War in Georgia, and with the state’s lucrative tax incentives likely has planned to make more – but maybe not now. “Disney and Marvel are inclusive companies, and although we have had great experiences filming in Georgia, we will plan to take our business elsewhere should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law,” said a Disney spokesman today over a bill that the Georgia legislature has passed that would permit faith-based groups and organizations to discriminate based on sexuality.

Roger Goodell, chairman of the National Football League is on the cusp of becoming America’s newest gay icon. Goodell, who has an openly gay brother, and the NFL, have emerged as staunch allies in gay rights advocates’ efforts to defeat HB 757, the controversial religious freedom bill that passed the Georgia legislature late last week.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says the idea of religious neutrality is not grounded in the country's constitutional traditions and that God has been good to the U.S. exactly because Americans honor him.Scalia was speaking Saturday at Archbishop Rummel High School in Metairie,.....Scalia, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, has consistently been one of the court's more conservative members.He told the audience at the Catholic school that there is "no place" in the country's constitutional traditions for the idea that the state must be neutral between religion and its absence.He also said there is "nothing wrong" with...

HOUSTON, Texas – The Cruz for President campaign announced a new TV ad, “Victories”, running statewide in Iowa through January 3rd. The ad highlights Cruz’s victories defending the Mojave Memorial Cross, the Texas Capitol Ten Commandments monument, the Second Amendment, and the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. The ad may be viewed here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOit03vT1n8

Under federal law, the executive branch is expressly required to take religion into account in determining who is granted asylum. Under the provision governing asylum (section 1158 of Title 8, U.S. Code), an alien applying for admission must establish that ... religion... was or will be at least one central reason for persecuting the applicant. Moreover, to qualify for asylum in the United States, the applicant must be a 'refugee' as defined by federal law. That definition (set forth in Section 1101(a)(42)(A) of Title , U.S. Code) also requires the executive branch to take account of the alien's religion: The...

ASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, for the second time in two years, the Little Sisters of the Poor must ask the Supreme Court to protect them from the government. The order of Catholic nuns and other non-profits have been forced to ask the Court for relief due to the government’s refusal to exempt them from a regulation that makes them choose between their faith—which prohibits them from providing contraceptives—and continuing to pursue their religious mission of serving the elderly poor (see video).“The government has lost every single time they have made these arguments before the Supreme Court—including last year’s landmark...

Iknoor Singh, a student at Hofstra University, thought he had found his calling when he attended a campus meeting of the U.S. Army’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. But when he tried to sign up, he was told that he would have to shave his beard, cut his hair and remove his turban. When he asked for a religious accommodation as a Sikh, the Army refused, saying that these articles of faith would undermine unit cohesion and morale, readiness, health and safety, and discipline. ..................................................... Yes, religious freedom needs protection. But religious liberty doesn’t mean the right to discriminate or to...

On this slender thread does the promise of religious liberty hang. Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his majority opinion in Obergefell that declares same-sex marriage a constitutional right, barely mentions the means by which most Americans conduct their weddings — houses of worship. Only on page 27 does Kennedy get around to addressing the connection between church and state, and the assurances in this paragraph are less than compelling, to say the least:

The Supreme Court’s opinions in the Obergefell vs. Hodges case — the majority opinion constitutionalizing same-sex marriage and the dissents — can be read here. You will not be surprised that the majority opinion in Obergefell, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, is full of gaseous eructations from the judicial pyloric, e.g., “the right to marry is fundamental because it supports a two-person union unlike any other in its importance to the committed individuals.” And who says a two-person union is unlike any other in its importance? This is groundless assertion. You really must read the four dissenting opinions in the...

Religious institutions could be at risk of losing their tax-exempt status due to their beliefs about marriage if the Supreme Court holds that gay couples have a constitutional right to wed, President Obama’s attorney acknowledged to the Supreme Court today. “It’s certainly going to be an issue,” Solicitor General Donald Verrilli replied when Justice Samuel Alito asked if schools that support the traditional definition of marriage would have to be treated like schools that once opposed interracial marriage. “I don’t deny that.”