Franklin Graham is waging war against the Equality Act, legislation that would merely extend the already-existing Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include LGBT people in areas such as housing, credit, education, and public accommodations.
Graham went on an insane diatribe in the July/August edition of his Decision Magazine, calling the fight against equality “A Battle for the Soul of the Nation.”
According to Graham, were the Equality Act, which passed the House in May and is languishing in the Senate, ever to become law, it would be, he warns, “a nightmare from which this nation may never recover.”
Think about that.
He is literally warning his constituency that merely treating LGBTQ people with the same respect that white Christian heterosexual men are granted as a birthright would be a “nightmare,” and have “catastrophic consequences.”
This legislation will have catastrophic consequences for competitive sports, along with churches and faith-based nonprofits who would lose all protections to hire people who adhere to their Biblical statements of faith. Christians will be persecuted for their sincerely held beliefs as never before. The clear teachings of the Bible on the sins of homosexuality and abortion will no doubt be considered “hate speech.” It will be a nightmare from which this nation may never recover.
That is, of course, all false.
Graham, of course, knows that the Equality Act has no chance of even coming to the floor of the U.S. Senate for a vote, as long as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is in charge. And he knows President Donald Trump will never, ever sign it should it by some miracle reach his desk.
So what’s Graham’s real agenda? Why the feverish fear-mongering?
He shows his hand, saying: “If the Senate majority changes or if enough Republican senators change their position, it would be up to the president to veto the bill. And if that office were to change hands in 2020, I have little doubt this would become the law of the land.”
As with many things Graham does, he is using his tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit status to campaign-while-not-campaigning for the President and the Republican Party.
Graham frames his argument by pointing to the very genuine support given to LGBTQ Americans and the very American actions exhibited by the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
Calling it “immoral behavior clearly condemned by Scripture,” Graham complained that “New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand served drinks at a gay bar; Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke sported a rainbow sweatband; and gay South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg talked openly about his coming out,” during Pride month.
Scandalous!
Imagine, a straight woman serving drinks at (horrors!) a gay bar, a straight man showing support for LGBTQ people, and a gay man talking – “openly” – about his journey of self discovery.
These acts, Graham writes, reveal “the deepening depravity that now vexes our country.”
Graham sees these actions, along with the House passage of the Equality Act and the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell marriage decision, as a sign “that same moral and spiritual framework, which has held our nation together for 243 years, is now unraveling so quickly that I fear for the future of our children and grandchildren.”
How sad that a 67-year old man of faith has so little faith in the American people he claims to serve, and in our Founding Fathers he claims to revere.
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