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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Brandon's Big Gay Blog / Culture

The One Thing Protecting This Country Is the Right to Bash Gays

Posted By on July 16, 2009, 2:56 PM

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I'm not a big fan of congressional trickiness (for instance, the habit lawmakers have of attaching unrelated bills as amendments to important budget measures). And I'm diffident about hate-crimes legislation in general.

Still, I love how Sen. Harry Reid's hate-crimes amendment of the defense authorization bill has sent right-wing homophobes through the roof.

The Liberty Council is one of those ultra-right-wing, litigious moral-panic groups that cloaks its hatred of gays and fear of personal privacy in the guise of religious freedom. (It's called "Liberty" because, as long as there's one gay person in the world who hasn't been bashed, none of us can ever be truly free.)

According to its latest press release, Reid is guilty of putting the military and America itself at risk "pushing his agenda" to "to glorify a bizarre range of sexual fetishes." (This "glorification" consists of adding gays and transgender people to the list of hate-crimes protected classes.)

Hm. If the Liberty Council is really not just acting out of homophobia, I wonder if it would sue if, say, the budget amendment in question intended to protect Christian fundamentalists from hate crimes?

Silly me; Christian fundamentalists are already protected under federal hate-crimes laws. For their chosen lifestyle, natch.

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