‘Holy Bullies’ Editor Blasts Religious Right After Report Shows GOP Replacing Gay Marriage Attacks With ‘Religious Liberty’ Campaign
Alvin McEwen has had it. The longtime LGBT activist and blogger who founded and writes at Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters points to a report at Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, ‘Religious Liberty’ Has Replaced ‘Gay Marriage’ In GOP Talking Points, which shows how the GOP is still attacking LGBT people, but in the 2016 presidential campaign the tactics have changed.Â
“ENOUGH with the game of lies being played on the lgbt community,” McEwen writes, noting he is “furious.”
The FiveThirtyEight report shows that in the GOP debates, references to the issue of same-sex marriage plummeted, from 135 in 2012, to just 49 in 2016. But it’s been replaced with “religious liberty.” In 2012 there were just eight mentions of the issue, but in 2016 it more than tripled, to 29 mentions. Â
“Talking about ‘religious liberty’ is rather easy,’ McEwen says. “It elevates the false idea of [protecting] a person from persecution because of their religious beliefs. It makes folks who discriminate in secular business dealings seem like they are being ‘persecuted’ for their religious beliefs, when in reality they are only being asked to treat all customers – whose taxes help with the safety and upkeep of their businesses – fairly.”
In the 70s, they said the children must be protected from “recruitment” since gays supposedly can’t reproduce.
In the 80s, they exploited the ignorance regarding the AIDS crisis to make lgbts seem like deserving pariahs.
In the 90s. it was all about keeping us from receiving unfair “special rights.”
And in the early 2000’s, it was all about “protecting marriage.”
McEwen goes on to call religious liberty, which he, like so many of us do, places in quotes, “a new bit of paint on the same old engine of homophobia and fear.”
He says, “the point is after so many victories, why are we having to explain our right to be treated like everyone else?,” and concludes: “Maybe it’s time for the other side to explain why they feel we shouldn’t.”
McEwen told The New Civil Rights Movement via email Thursday that that he’s also frustrated that the LGBT community seems “to be doing the same dance with the religious right and allowing them to lead.”
“We’ve proven ourselves and our right to dignity time and time again,” he reminds us.
“Are we going to aggressively change the narrative of this argument with as much fury as we concern ourselves with other things like Oscar winning gay singers or the new season of a Logo series?,” McEwen asks. “Or are we going to continue to allow the opposition to portray us [as] invading outsiders?”
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Image by American Life League via Flickr and a CC license