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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

Will Senators Ask Trump’s Attorney General Nominee About His History of Anti-Gay and Religious Extremism?

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William Barr Is Jeff Sessions on Steroids, Coupled With Decades More Experience

Perhaps it comes as no surprise that the man who served as Attorney General in the early 1990’s under President George H.W. Bush would have written an anti-gay and religious call to action, lamenting the civil rights advancements of the 30 years prior, and modern culture which he saw as far too sexually permissive.

He did.

Former Attorney General William Barr, who served under the first President Bush, penned a wildly anti-equality, anti-First Amendment, 5000 word treatise published by a Catholic University in 1995 that sounds exactly like it was written by a far right wing religious conservative.

Because it was.

In it, he rails against what he sees as the “increasingly militant, secular age,” the “bigotry” of “a growing hostility toward religion,” and “efforts to marginalize or ‘ghettoize’ orthodox religion.”

He derided the “the steady erosion of the traditional Judeo-Christian moral system,” and “traditional morality.”

Barr is not a fan of the 1960’s.

“It is undeniable that, since the mid-1960s, there has been a steady and mounting assault on traditional values. We have lived through thirty years of permissiveness, the sexual revolution, and the drug culture,” he laments.

All this is leading up to “the most significant feature of contemporary society,” which Barr claims is “the battering that the family has taken.”

Not, say, computers, space travel, modern medicine, greater access to education, or, freedom in general.

In fact, Barr sees “the immense power of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry, academia, and so forth as “barriers to the return of traditional morality.”

“The power and pervasiveness of our high-tech popular culture … fuels the collapse of morality,” he says.

And then there’s this, which should concern every American who cares about the First Amendment and the separation of church and state: “The state no longer sees itself as a moral institution, but a secular one.”

Imagine an Attorney General who would like to “repair” that, and have the federal government act as a moral, or religious institution. We saw a glimpse of that under Attorney General Jeff Sessions. William Barr is Jeff Sessions on steroids, coupled with decades more experience.

Barr continues, attacking what Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern identifies as “DC’s gay nondiscrimination law.”

“Another example was the effort to apply District of Columbia law to compel Georgetown University to treat homosexual activist groups like any other student group,” Barr writes. “This kind of law dissolves any form of moral consensus in society. There can be no consensus based on moral views in the country, only enforced neutrality.”

Just before that, Barr writes that a “way in which secularists use law as a weapon is to pass laws that affirmatively promote the moral relativist viewpoint. Such laws seek to ratify, or put on an equal plane, conduct that previously was considered immoral.”

Will U.S. Senators on the Judiciary Committee ask Barr this week about his views on marriage, and the rights of minorities, including LGBTQ people?

Barr also cites laws that “are proposed that treat a cohabitating couple exactly as one would a married couple.”

While he doesn’t say it, he clearly could be referring to same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.

Barr also talks about the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, and throws this bible-based bombshell: “Self-government did not mean the mechanism by which one elected representatives to a legislative body. Self-government referred to the capacity of each individual to restrain and govern themselves.”

He concludes with a call to action, asking, “how can we be confident that the pendulum will swing back?” In other words, how can we take the civil rights advances from the ’60’s on and push them back?

“The real message is that we are going to have to do more than joust around the margins. We must re-enter the fray in an effective way; take the battlefield and enter the struggle, rather than just retire in good order. The key is a return to basics-in a sense, to reassemble the flock,” Barr decides.

And he also calls for “vouchers at the state level and ultimately at the federal level to support parental choice in education,” meaning religious, and especially Catholic education. “We should press at every turn for the inclusion of religious institutions. We need to fight those cases in the states up to the Supreme Court.”

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, now chaired by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) will begin hearings on the nomination of William Barr to become the next Attorney General on Tuesday.

Image: William Barr speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 15, 2005, via Wikimedia

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BIGOTRY

Rep. Tim Walberg Tells Uganda to ‘Stand Firm’ on ‘Kill The Gays’ Law Ted Cruz Called ‘Horrific’

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Tim Walberg Uganda Kill The Gays Law

Representative Tim Walberg (R-MI) delivered a speech in Uganda to defend the country’s President Yoweri Museveni and the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023, better known as the “Kill the Gays” law.

Walberg traveled to Uganda in October to attend a national prayer breakfast organized by the Fellowship Foundation, also known as The Family, which also covered the cost of his trip, according to TYT. In the speech, transcribed by the blog Take Care Tim, he told the attendees to “stand firm” in the face of criticism.

“Whose side do we want to be on? God’s side. Not the World Bank, not the United States of America necessarily, not the UN. God’s side,” Walberg said. “I think as we go on here, it says, ‘So I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked, And I will redeem you from the grasp of the violent.’ – Who’s gonna do that? God is gonna do that. Your esteemed President, his excellency, President Museveni needs a nation that stands with him and says, though the rest of the world is pushing back on you, though there are other major countries that are trying to get into you and ultimately change you, stand firm. Stand firm.”

READ MORE: Mike Johnson Once Agreed to Speak at ‘Kill the Gays’ Pastor’s Conference – Until an NCRM Report

Walberg made it clear he knew his view would be unpopular in the United States.

“Now, this will probably get back to the national media in the United States, and I expect some pushback, but I’m not gonna give in to them. … I know that your President is a warrior. I like that about him. We’re in a battle, folks. We are in a battle,” he said.

Though Uganda has had homophobia enshrined in its legal code since it was a British protectorate, the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 is a drastic escalation. Previously, homosexuality was punished with life in prison, according to the Advocate. The new law allows the death penalty for those convicted of “aggravated homosexuality.” It also bans “promotion of homosexuality,” much like Russia bans queer “propaganda”.

The law is so draconian that Republican Senator Ted Cruz—no ally to the queer communitycondemned it. In May, shortly after Museveni signed the law, Cruz called the law “horrific” on X, formerly Twitter.

This Uganda law is horrific & wrong. Any law criminalizing homosexuality or imposing the death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’ is grotesque & an abomination. ALL civilized nations should join together in condemning this human rights abuse. #LGBTQ,” Cruz tweeted.

Attempts to pass a similar bill to the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 started in 2014, with a bill also called the “Kill the Gays” law. That form of the bill was built by anti-LGBTQ activist Scott Lively, who previously claimed then-President Barack Obama was secretly gay.

While it didn’t go into effect then, the bill and ones like it kept popping up on Uganda’s parliamentary agenda. Earlier this year, President Joe Biden threatened to cut nearly $1 billion in annual aid to Uganda if the bill passed.

A previous version of this story credited Salon with the initial reporting; Salon had republished the article from TYT. The sourcing has been corrected; NCRM regrets the error.

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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

If States Start Designating ‘Christian History Month’ You Can Thank This Far Right Christian Nationalist Group

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When the National Association of Christian Lawmakers held its annual conference at Liberty University last month, the event featured a “para-legislative session” at which state legislators and religious-right activists proposed and discussed various resolutions and sample legislation.

Among the speakers at the session was Allan Parker, president of religious-right organization The Justice Foundation, who urged the lawmakers in attendance to return to their states and introduce resolutions declaring the month of June to be “Christian History Month.”

“I think people are feeling it’s time for Christian History Month,” Parker said. “I hadn’t thought about when but I’m going to suggest June because it’s also Celebrate Life Month. The life of this nation was founded on a Christian worldview [and] if we preach all this and teach it in June, we’ll be ready for the Fourth of July with a true understanding of what it means.”

“You have the authority to create celebratory months and recognize things,” Parker reminded the gathered lawmakers.

Parker’s comments make it clear that religious-right leaders would use any state-designated “Christian History Month” as an official vehicle for promoting false and exclusionary Christian nationalist versions of American history, the kind promoted relentlessly by right-wing activists like David Barton, his son Tim, and pastors like Jackson Lahmeyer and Jack Hibbs.

The NACL was founded by unabashed Christian nationalist and former Arkansas state senator Jason Rapert, who is quite open about his intention to do everything that he can to ensure that Christians who share his far-right worldviewtake authority” over every aspect of this nation.

Christian nationalists like Rapert believe that the country was founded as an explicitly Christian nation and that right-wing Christians must do everything they can to keep it that way, including making laws align with their particular religious and political worldview, one that is not shared by many Americans and even many Christians.Via the National Association for Christian Lawmakers, Rapert is putting this talk into action, using his organization advance so-called “biblical” legislation in statehouses throughout the country that would roll back abortion rights and the rights of LGBTQ Americans, defund public libraries that offer LGBTQ-friendly materials, and now perhaps push states or localities to honor Christian History Month.

It is surely no coincidence that LGBTQ Pride Month is already celebrated in June in the United States, a fact that drawn increasingly hostile responses this year from anti-equality activists as right-wing political leaders have escalated their rhetoric targeting LGBTQ people and their supporters.

 

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

Image via Shutterstock

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LGBT

Trans Man Says Walgreens Pharmacist Refuses to Give Him His Hormone Prescription

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Transgender rights protest

An Oakland, California transgender man says one of the pharmacists at a Walgreens refused to hand over his hormone replacement medicine, even though the prescription was ready for pickup.

Roscoe Rike posted his story and a video to Reddit’s r/Oakland forum on Tuesday. Though the text of the post has since been deleted, according to KRON, Rike said he had the specific prescription filled for three years at the Telegraph Avenue location. He also said he’d been going there for other medications for the past decade, and never had a problem before.

Was denied my HRT medication at the temescal walgreens by a transphobic religious bigot
by u/lokigoeswoof in oakland

This time, though, an unfamiliar pharmacist was behind the counter. When Rike asked to pick up his prescription, the pharmacist, he says, asked what it was for.

“I told him I was pretty sure that it wasn’t any of his business,” Rike said, according to KRON.

READ MORE: No, Elon Musk, ‘Cis’ Is Not a Slur

In a followup comment on the Reddit post, he added that since Rike wouldn’t tell him, the pharmacist tried calling Rike’s doctor—though Rike doesn’t know if he was able to find anything out.

The pharmacist then told Rike that he couldn’t fill the prescription “due to his religious beliefs.” This is when Rike took out his phone and recorded the video that can be seen in the Reddit post above. In the clip, Rike asks “So right now you’re telling me that you’re going to deny me my medication because of your personal religion, you’re not my f***ing doctor? So you think you know better than my doctor, that’s what’s going on?”

“I just need to know the diagnosis,” the pharmacist replies.

“Why? That’s none of your f***ing business,” Rike counters. “I’m going to let you know right now that I’m going to be reporting this, by the way, what’s your name?”

The pharmacist replies “Malik Tahir,” and Rike says that he’s going to report him for discrimination. Tahir says Rike can come in at noon, but Rike says he wants it now.

“Always the religious people who have the most f***ing hate in their hearts. You’re disgusting,” Rike says, and Tahir repeats that Rike can come in at noon. Rike reiterates that he wants his medication now, and the video cuts off.

In comments, he said that he’d “never yelled at a stranger before that day.” He then asked to see the manager, KRON reports, who “apologized profusely,” Rike said, and gave him his prescription.

Walgreens told KRON it would “review the matter.”

“Our policies are designed to ensure we meet the needs of our patients and customers, while respecting the religious and moral beliefs of our team members. In an instance where a team member has a religious or moral conviction that prevents them from meeting a customer’s need, we require the team member to refer the customer to another employee or manager on duty who can complete the transaction. These instances, however, are very rare,” a Walgreens spokesperson told the station.

Rike says he’s reached out to the Transgender Law Center and hopes to hear back in the next two weeks.

“My main concern is making sure I do everything I can to keep this guy from doing what he did to me, to anyone else. That comes first. If I can get a settlement out of it, great! But it’s not my priority. I just want peace for myself and other trans people trying to live their lives,” he wrote on Reddit.

 

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