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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

‘We Need to Go All the Way’: GOP Lawmaker Brags Her ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill ‘Goes Further’ Than Florida’s But Not Far Enough

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A far right Republican state lawmaker in Pennsylvania who has worked to get prayer into schools is pushing a “Don’t Say Gay” bill and bragging that it goes even “further” than Florida’s, but wants it to be even broader.

Republican state Rep. Stephanie Borowicz denies her legislation is a “Don’t Say Gay” bill, but as PennLive reports it states public and charter schools “may not offer instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity to a student in kindergarten through fifth grade.”

Rep. Borowicz admits that although her bill expands on Florida’s which technically bans discussion of LGBTQ issues until after third grade, she wants it to be even more broad.

“It is patterned after the Florida bill, but mine goes further,” she said. “It really needs to be protected up through 12th grade, we need to go all the way.”

She does not state what “it” is.

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PennLive reports Borowicz supports similar legislation, Senate Bill 1278, “which would allow schools to be sued for material that is ‘not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate’ at any grade level.”

The Pennsylvania Republican Party’s gubernatorial nominee, Christian nationalist Doug Mastriano, also supports the “Don’t Say Gay” bills.

Like other state’s bills, the language is intentionally broad and undefined, which experts say is intentional to create fear among teachers to steer clear away from any issue that might come near to the ban.

“Asked what sort of communication would constitute ‘instruction’ under the bill, Borowicz said, ‘I’m not going to get into the details of all that.'”

Last week when announcing her new anti-LGBTQ bill, Rep. Borowicz called for the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education to resign, “because LGBTQ-inclusive curricula and other resources were featured on the Pennsylvania Department of Education site,” WITF reports.

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“Everything from gender neutral days and classrooms, from 3rd to 12th grade to a tutorial on gender pronouns and instructions for teachers to ask before making false assumptions about someone’s gender identity,” Borowicz said.

Borowicz, who was first elected in 2018, she is the first woman and only the second Republican to hold that seat.

“The mission of keeping my word to the people of the 76th Legislative District starts immediately,” she said upon being sworn in.

Borowicz’s bio frequently mentions she was the “president of a nonprofit organization,” while rarely explaining what that nonprofit was.

In 2018 Borowicz “said it was for Make A Stand USA, an organization she and her sister created to get prayer gatherings at schools in 2010. She said it was her sister who paid for it and no money was made for the one event it sponsored. Two years later, she said, it was disbanded,” The Record Online reported.

Rep. Borowicz is a big fan of prayer, but the ways she has used it has caused outrage, even among her follow House colleagues.

Months after she was sworn in, an newly elected state representative, who is Muslim, was sworn in.

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Borowicz delivered the House’s invocation that day, and by the time it was over she had mentioned “Jesus” thirteen times. She was accused of weaponizing pray and Islamophobia and antisemitism.

“God forgive us — Jesus — we’ve lost sight of you, we’ve forgotten you, God, in our country, and we’re asking you to forgive us, Jesus,”Borowicz said, as HuffPost reported.

“She also prayed for President Donald Trump and thanked the president for ‘unequivocally’ supporting Israel.”

“I claim all these things in the powerful, mighty name of Jesus, the one who, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess, Jesus, that you are Lord, in Jesus’ name,” she also proclaimed.

Think Biblically reports she also said, “thank you for this honor, Jesus. God, for those who came before us like George Washington at Valley Forge and Abraham Lincoln who sought after you at Gettysburg, Jesus, and the founding fathers in Independence Hall, Jesus, that sought after you and fasted and prayed for this nation to be founded on your principles and your words and your truths.”

“Jesus, I thank you for this privilege, Lord, of letting me pray, God, that I Jesus am your ambassador here today. Standing here, representing you — the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Great I Am, the one who is coming back again, the one who came died and rose again on the third day,” she prayed.

Watch Rep. Borowicz’s prayer below or at this link.

 

 

 

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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

US Secretary of State Denounces Uganda’s New ‘Kill the Gays’ Bill

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is publicly denouncing Uganda’s latest Anti-Homosexuality legislation, which is being called a “Kill the Gays” bill for its capital punishment penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.”

The legislation passed in a nearly-unanimous vote and now heads to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni‘s desk.

“The Anti-Homosexuality Act passed by the Ugandan Parliament yesterday would undermine fundamental human rights of all Ugandans and could reverse gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We urge the Ugandan Government to strongly reconsider the implementation of this legislation,” Secretary Blinken said via Twitter Wednesday morning.

Uganda, a far-right religious country has a long history of targeting and marginalizing its LGBTQ citizens, including passing a modified “Kill the Gays” bill that was signed into law in 2014, only to be overturned in court on a technicality. That law was drafted and promoted with the aid of American far-right evangelicals.

READ MORE: Florida GOP Lawmaker Who Wrote ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Facing Up to 35 Years After Pleading Guilty in COVID Fraud Case

Ugandan lawmakers on Tuesday passed legislation that makes being LGBTQ illegal, proscribes the death penalty for certain same-sex acts, and decades or life in prison for identifying as LGBTQ. It also requires anyone with knowledge of another person being LGBTQ or engaging in same-sex acts to be reported to the government.

“All but two of the 389 legislators voted late on Tuesday for the hardline anti-homosexuality bill, which introduces capital and life imprisonment sentences for gay sex and ‘recruitment, promotion and funding’ of same-sex ‘activities’,” The Guardian reports.

“A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality and is liable, on conviction to suffer death,” the bill states.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, in a statement warned: “If the bill is signed into law, it will render LGBTIQ+ people in Uganda criminals simply for existing, for being who they are. It could provide carte blanche for the systematic violation of nearly all of their human rights and serve to incite people against each other.”

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One of the two Ugandan Members of Parliament who voted against the bill, Fox Odoi-Oywelowo, calls it “ill-conceived,” and says parts are “unconstitutional.”

He says it “reverses the gains registered in the fight against gender-based violence and criminalises individuals instead of conduct that contravenes all known legal norms.”

President Museveni, who signed into law a modified version of the 2014 “Kill the Gays” bill, will now have to decide if he wants to sign this version as well.

 

Image: Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock

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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

Christian Nationalist Former Lawmaker Wants Right-Wing Evangelicals to ‘Take Authority’ Over All Levels of Government

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Jason Rapert, a former Arkansas state senator and founder of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, appeared on the “Give Me Liberty” program late last year and laid out his vision for a nation in which every congressional seat is occupied by Christian conservatives.

“Give Me Liberty” is produced by Liberty University’s Standing for Freedom Center, which was originally named the Falkirk Center in honor of its founders, former Liberty president Jerry Falwell Jr. and right-wing youth activist Charlie Kirk. The organization changed its name in 2021 after Falwell resigned in disgrace and Liberty decided to  part ways with Kirk.

Despite the departure of Kirk and Falwell, the center’s “Give Me Liberty” podcast appears to have kept its Christian nationalist bent.

A longtime religious-right activist and ardent Christian nationalist, Rapert declared on the December 17, 2022 episode of the “Give Me Liberty” show that right-wing Christians must rise up and “take authority” over everything from their local school boards to the federal government.

“When people quote the Bible and say, ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord’—Psalm 33:12—how in the world do you expect to ever have that if you are not electing somebody that would adhere to that worldview?” Rapert asked. “You can’t have a nation whose God is the Lord when you’re electing people that are holding up Sodom and Gomorrah as a goal to be achieved rather than a sin to be shunned.”

“What we need is a revival of spirit that will change individual hearts, and then once that happens, then we need to have men and women that say, ‘We need to take authority so that in our school boards, our city councils, our state legislatures, and in Congress, that we’ve got people that love God and want to do what is right in the sight of God and man,’” Rapert added. “I’ll tell you, there’s over 330 million people in this nation in the last census; I think we could find 535 more people to serve in the Senate and in the House. Are you telling me that the evangelical community can’t muster 535 men and women qualified to run for office that would stand up for God and country? Oh, yeah, we can.”

“There’s only 7,383 state legislators,” Rapert continued, “You’ve got more students at Liberty than serve in our state capitals. What if one crop of the Liberty classes all went home and ran for office? You’d make a difference, you’d change the community, and you just might save the nation.”

Christian nationalists like Rapert believe that the country was founded as an explicitly Christian nation and that right-wing Christians must keep it that way. Via the National Association for Christian Lawmakers, Rapert is putting this talk into action, advancing so-called “biblical” legislation in statehouses throughout the country that would roll back abortion rights and the rights of LGBTQ Americans. As Rolling Stone reported last month, the group’s advisory board includes politicians like Mike Huckabee and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as well as influential religious-right activists like Tony Perkins of Family Research Council and Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel.

 

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

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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

‘Bait and Switch’: Minister Slams Hobby Lobby Founder’s ‘He Gets Us’ Ads

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The mysterious “He Gets Us” ads airing around major sporting events have been traced back to groups tied to the billionaire conservative founder of the Hobby Lobby craft store chain, David Green, who is using the spot as an effort to “rebrand Jesus” and bring religion more prominently into the public square.

But his effort is just a “bait and switch,” argues Rev. Darrell Goodwin of the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ, in an opinion for the CT Mirror.

The Super Bowl ads, which highlighted Jesus as a “refugee” who “confronted racism with love,” first appeared to be “a breath of fresh air,” wrote Goodwin, a progressive, Black, and openly queer minister who preaches in Bloomfield, Connecticut. “However, the funders of this invitation are the same folks who promote anti-LGBT legislation, a denial of women’s rights to their own bodies, the campaigns of clear white supremacists, and the evangelical church.”

“This approach to sharing faith can lead folks to feel violated, abused, and most of all can cause irreparable harm and even death,” Goodwin warned. “Instead, I would rather these ads promote a gospel of radical inclusion, a path that says no matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey you are welcome here.”

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This comes as all around the country, progressive Black ministers have sought to push a more inclusive and justice-focused Christianity, from Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who preaches at the baptist church that was once home to Martin Luther King, to Everett Mitchell, an activist pastor turned reformer judge now running for the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

In contrast to what he claims is the contradiction of the “He Gets Us” campaign, Goodwin promoted a site his own conference is launching, known as “Find Hope Now.”

“It may not be a flashy ad on the Super Bowl but it’s an invitation that isn’t funded by right-wing propaganda or a false attempt to love,” wrote Goodwin, saying that his effort is funded by small contributions throughout Southern New England “so that there will be hope centers all over New England awaiting you with open arms.”

 

Image: Romolo Tavani/Shutterstock

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