Using religious liberty as a weapon for homophobia

Peter Montgomery,  a senior fellow at  People for the American Way, recently came out with a column dissecting how the anti-lgbt right uses the argument of religious liberty as a weapon against our community.

It should be required reading.

Here is an excerpt:

For the second year in a row, more than 100 pieces of anti-LGBT legislation were introduced in state legislatures during the first few months of the year, many of them promoted as measures to protect religious liberty. How did something as fundamentally American as religious freedom become a culture war weapon against LGBT people and their families?

The religious right has a long history of equating criticism with persecution, and portraying political losses and legal defeats as attacks on faith and freedom. Its followers have been told for years that feminists, liberals, and gays are out to silence people of faith, and even to criminalize Christianity.

There’s a sinister logic to the strategy: It is easier to convince fair-minded people to support discrimination against their gay neighbors if you first convince them that the gay rights movement is out to destroy their churches and families.

Read more of The Weaponization of Religious Liberty