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Bathroom Bills Aren’t About Religious Freedom

In order to believe transgender identities are somehow sinful, you would have toinvent scripture that just isn’t there. This would also require one to conflate gender and sex either lacking the knowledge that they are not one in the same or just refusing to believe the medical community. You would also have to believe that sex is binary, while ignoring the biological reality of intersex individuals. You would need to also forget Jesus’ words of praise to the gender minorities in biblical times. Of course, this doesn’t even begin to cover how bathroom usage is somehow part of North Carolinians religious practices.

H/T: HuffPo

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Let’s Not Forget About #RFRAs

Don’t forget: There is already a Federal Religious Freedom law that protects an individual or group’s religious freedom from government interference.

Don’t forget: Under the state-level RFRAs that have been in the news recently, such as those in Indiana and Arkansas, people can claim their religious beliefs prevent them from serving LGBTQ people or counseling an LGBTQ student who is grappling with their identity. 

Indiana’s original RFRA extended religious rights beyond individuals to private businesses.

LGBTQ discrimination is wrong. Religious discrimination is wrong.
Discrimination is wrong.

States must protect all of our rights.
It shouldn’t be an either, or proposition.

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This is Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson. He is expected to sign into law HB1228, a religious freedom bill almost identical to the one passed in Indiana. 

What does he think about the bill? 

“Arkansas is open for business, and we recognize and respect the diversity of our culture and economy.”

If that’s true, then where are the protections for groups that comprise that diversity? We want answers, Gov. Hutchinson. 

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These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear. They go against the very principles our nation was founded on, and they have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality.

Tim Cook on the dangers of “religious freedom” bills, which have the potential to do great harm to LGBT communities and others. Read the whole op/ed here.