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| Brian Brown |
However, some of us believe that these laws have a more sinister purpose than merely "protecting Christians," and thanks to National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown, we have a bit of confirmation about this.
Where else but yesterday at the World Congress of Families (i.e. Legion of Homophobia) conference did Brown put his foot in his mouth.
From Right Wing Watch:
Brian Brown from the National Organization for Marriage followed (Cathy) Ruse (of the Family Research Council) and matched her tone of defiance against “our unelected masters.” The Supreme Court didn’t change the definition of marriage, he said, it “put a lie into the law” — just like slavery and the Dred Scott decision. Brown said that there’s no time for activists to be depressed. Citing the history of Christian martyrs, abolitionists and civil rights activists, he mocked people who don’t want to take a stand because some of their Facebook friends might say mean things about them.
“Instead of being depressed, we should savor the fact that we live at a point in history, like those times before, in which we can stand for the truth, make a difference, and God has put us here for some reason. This fight is not over. It has just begun.”
Brown proposed four goals for the anti-marriage-equality movement:
Affirm continually and publicly that marriage is by nature a union of a man and a woman.
Reject the Supreme Court’s decision as illegitimate
Overturn the decision, perhaps through decades of struggle or perhaps with new Supreme Court justices appointed by a Republican president elected in 2016
Contain the damage in the meanwhile by passing laws that allow public officials and businesspeople to refuse to have anything to do with gay couples’ marriages.
Brown's goals are laughable, but number four is the one we should pay attention to because it confirms all of the negatives lgbts and allies have been saying about religious liberty laws.
Religious liberty laws are not about protecting faith. Faith has nothing to do with it but be a diversionary ploy. When you strip the diversion away, you are left with the same message segregation gave African-Americans, i.e. that they are inferior and have no right to dignity.
By that same token, religious liberty laws are not to designed to keep a bakery or a flower shop from participating in something that's against the owners' faith. Rather, these laws are designed to send a message to gay couples that their marriage is and will always be inferior or nonexistent in the eyes of some people. Now anyone can have this personal opinion about marriage equality, but attempts to enshrine this nastiness by way of law is just plain wrong.
And exploiting faith to undermine any couple's love and legal rights is simply ugly.
