South Carolina Senator’s Bill Would Legalize Religious Anti-Gay Marriage Discrimination

A South Carolina state senator’s legislation would allow state employees to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Meet Lee Bright. In 2009, he took his seat as a South Carolina Republican state senator, having left his prior employment as the head of his father’s trucking firm. On a campaign disclosure – Bright tried, and failed, to unseat U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham – he reported “owing 29 creditors between $1.4 million and $3.1 million,” according to The State.

Now 44 years old, Bright is on a mission to expand the right of South Carolinians to discriminate against LGBT people.

Bright moving toward his anti-gay goal by filing a bill last week that would exempt any employee who works for the State of South Carolina from having to do their job by issuing a marriage license to any same-sex couple. That state employee, should Sen. Bright’s bill pass and become law, merely has to claim they have a sincerely-held religious belief against same-sex marriage and they almost literally get a “get out of jail free” card.

“At the end of the day I want to know I did all I could, and I think it’s something we need to do to protect these judges so they can serve in these honorable positions without feeling like they betrayed their faith,” Bright said. 

But it’s not as if Bright has an internal fairness doctrine operating and wants to help or protect LGBT people, or judges whose faith supports same-sex marriage. “Faith” isn’t necessarily the driving force behind Bright’s bill. 

In January, Bright called for judges whose rulings support marriage equality to be impeached.

“Congress ought to stand up and do its job and impeach one of these federal judges,” Bright told a Tea Party group. “And I think when you do that, being a federal judge is a pretty good gig, and I think if you’ll impeach just one, the rest of them will do the right thing. And they’ll do it out of necessity, because self-preservation is an instinct that so many folks have.”

And in April, Bright railed against what he claims is “indoctrination” of college students into “the homosexual agenda.”

Sen. Bright was on C-SPAN with Family Research Council Action leader and reality TV star Josh Duggar, and announced, “we’ve got the homosexual agenda on the full march in our institutions of higher ed and we’ve gone from education to indoctrination, so we are in a fight — they have seized the educational establishment and we’ve got to take that back and we’ve got to get folks involved in that or otherwise that’s our next generation.”

Here’s Bright delivering an offensive speech on the floor of the South Carolina Senate, railing against LGBT people.

 

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Hat tip: Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters