Last week 206 Republican congressmen and women voted against the Equality Act. Democrats voted unanimously for it. Three Republicans did as well. They were apparently voting their conscience rather than party. That tally shouldn’t be a surprise. While President Joe Biden has called for unity, one would have been foolish to expect the Republicans to accept civil rights and equality for all.
During the debate on the bill, Congressional Republicans played the god card, preaching their opposition as if they stood at the pulpit of an evangelical mega-church. God this, god that, they cried. The gist of Republican argument against the Equality Act is based in their belief that protecting LGBTQs from discrimination encroaches on religious freedom. In other words, they believe religious organizations (read Christian churches) should be afforded a special right to continue to discriminate against anyone they choose, especially LGBTQ people. Their attacks targeted transgender people in particular.
Not surprisingly, in a related story, Rand Paul (R-KY) attacked transgender individuals in a rant during the confirmation hearings for Dr. Rachel Levine, a transwoman, as Assistant Secretary for Health. In the course of his presentation, Paul’s inappropriately cited the cultural phenomenon of genital mutilation as a comparison to transgenderism. He did not, however, mention the circumcision.
Hate Crime
In other, also related news, a white supremacist bomber who targeted a Jewish synagogue, was just convicted and sentenced to 19 years in prison. His case was not tried as a hate crime but for using an explosive device to keep people from exercising their religion. I doubt the terrorist’s concern was about ritual and was, in fact, motivated by pure anti-Semitism. However, the avoidance of calling this a hate crime is within the right’s strategy to make such acts about religion, not about bigotry. In other words, it’s OK to hate, just as long as you don’t attack a house of worship.
Meanwhile, if you thought that the Equality Act would muster gay Republicans to rally around the Rainbow flag and support our (and their own) rights, you would be mistaken. The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), the organization of lesbian, gay and bisexual conservatives…no, wait…the organization of rightwing cisgender gays, lesbians and bisexuals, has a history of transphobia (as well as other racial, ethnic and other phobias). It may seem odd on the surface but ultimately it should be of no surprise.
The GOP has evolved into the party of Christian white supremacy and the philosophy of subjugation of minorities based on religious belief. For whatever reason, the Log Cabin Republicans have embraced that political philosophy. In its denunciation of the Equality Act, LCR called it “dangerous” and harmful” to the nation. Chief among the litany of reasons (including its infringement religious freedom, of course) why the LCR sees it that way, was their belief that the Equality Act puts transgender rights above gay, lesbian and bisexual rights. The head-spinning rationale believes affording transgender individuals rights counters the argument that LGB people are “born that way” and hence deserve equal rights as those born heterosexual. Ignoring the science that people with gender dysphoria are born that way, the Republican gays seem to embrace the religious right’s argument against LGBTQs overall, but conveniently here only as applied to trangender people.
The U.S. Senate takes up the bill in a future session. Chances are the vote could end in a tie, if all Republican senators oppose it. Vice President Kamala Harris would then cast the deciding vote.
