Transgender Bill: The "Religious Liberty" Feint

According to the Sunday Washington Post, opponents of the Montgomery County transgender anti-discrimination bill would like to see exemptions for hiring by religious institutions, including religious schools. The same argument is being used by right-wing Christian groups across the country as an excuse to oppose ENDA: that the law will force people to violate their religious beliefs by hiring gay people.

We’re supposed to believe that the opponents have a principled position based on religious freedom, rather than an unprincipled one based on animus towards gay, lesbian, and transgender people.

However, despite the lofty commitment to religious freedom they claim to have, the Christian Right does not demand that laws banning discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, etc. have exemptions for religious institutions or belief.

Why not? Under the principles they cite when trying to scuttle protections for LGBT individuals, someone should have the right to keep blacks out of his business establishment if his religious beliefs are that God created the races to remain separate. And if a woman believes that physical infirmities are God’s way of cursing sinners and marking them as evil, then the law should protect her right not to hire someone with a disability. If a man believes that women should stay at home and be submissive to their husbands, why should the government coerce him into violating his religious tenets by hiring married women in management positions?

Yet right-wing anti-LGBT Christians do not argue that exemptions are necessary for these types of discrimination. They demand these exemptions only when lesbians, gays, and transgender people will be hurt.

That’s not a principle. That’s animus.

And labeling it “religious” doesn’t make it any less wrong.

As for demanding a statutory exemption solely for their own particular religious belief - Can there be a better example of demanding "special rights?"