Anti-LGBTQ activist Franklin Graham is furious over Monday’s Supreme Court ruling that finds Title Vii of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects LGBTQ workers from discrimination, and says America was founded on his right to fire them.
“As a Bible-believing follower of Jesus Christ, my rights should be protected,” Graham writing on Facebook about the SCOTUS decision, insists. “Even if my sincerely held religious beliefs might be the minority, I still have a right to hold them. The same holds true for a Christian organization. These are the freedoms our nation was founded on.”
“I believe this decision erodes religious freedoms across this country,” the evangelical Christian preacher continued. “People of sincere faith who stand on God’s Word as their foundation for life should never be forced by the government to compromise their religious beliefs.”
That’s just plain false. For example, it’s also the argument pedophile polygamist Warren Jeffs, President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints made. The courts disagreed. (The FLDS is not the Mormon Church.)
Graham wasn’t finished.
“Christian organizations should never be forced to hire people who do not align with their biblical beliefs and should not be prevented from terminating a person whose lifestyle and beliefs undermine the ministry’s purpose and goals,” he added.
Graham also falsely characterized the Supreme Court’s historic ruling, claiming it “enacted a new law that adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the 1964 Civil Rights Act as ‘protected classes.'”
That, too, is just plain false.
What the SCOTUS justices did was what other courts for more than a decade had already done: understand and realize that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is sex discrimination. They didn’t “enact a new law,” they recognized the existing law already protects LGBTQ people.
Ironically, Graham linked to an excellent Rolling Stone article announcing the Court’s landmark ruling. It ends by calling it “a victory for LGBTQ people and for all Americans who care about justice and fairness.”