Sen Mike Lee's homophobia latest chapter in religious right's war on EEOC nominee

Chai Feldblum

Hold on to your hula hoops. GOP Sen. Mike Lee is holding up a Trump nominee because she supports LGBTQ equality. Don't faint yet because there is more to the story. So much more, in fact.

From Vox:

Conservative Sen. Mike Lee is taking a lone stand against a Trump nominee, blocking her from joining the office that takes workplace complaints because of her support for LGBTQ rights. 

Lee has argued that the nominee, Chai Feldblum, wants to “use the might of government to stamp out traditional marriage supporters” and called for a nominee “who respects the institution of marriage and religious freedom for all Americans.” 

President Trump put Feldblum in front of the Senate to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal office where Americans can turn for help with complaints about workplace discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion, and other factors — including sexual orientation. 

Feldblum, who currently serves as one of the EEOC’s five commissioners, was appointed to the commission by President Barack Obama in 2010 and nominated for another term this year by Trump. 

. . Feldblum is the first openly lesbian commissioner of the EEOC and a longtime advocate for LGBTQ rights. She helped draft the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a proposed (but, as yet, never passed) federal law that would bar employers from discriminating against workers or applicants based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. 

In a February statement, Lee argued that Feldblum was too radical for the EEOC, casting her as an opponent of religious freedom. Feldblum “has described modern-day politics as a ‘zero-sum game,’ where rights for LGBT Americans are secured only by curtailing the rights of religious Americans,” he wrote, claiming that she opposes all religious exceptions to laws if they infringe on the liberty of LGBTQ people.

Notice that the article said that Feldblum was appointed by Obama. At the time of that appointment, religious right groups and their supporters opposed her to the point of launching an unsuccessful all-out attack by attempting to paint her as a "radical" who supported polygamy.

The most enduring lie they told against Feldblum was in 2009. They claimed she once flippantly said "gays win, Christians lose" when asked a question about anti-discrimination laws affecting evangelical Christians.  The alleged statement "gays win, Christians lose" was refuted by the group Media Matters and revealed in later years to be a truncated distortion created by a former employee of the Family Research Council.

It sounds to me that Sen. Lee, while not attributing false quotes to Feldblum, is using the same inaccurate mindset about her- that she is hostile to evangelicals.  And he isn't the only one. According to the Vox article:

A number of socially conservative groups have also opposed Feldblum’s nomination, with the American Family Association calling her “the Dragon Queen of Religious Bigotry” and “a one-woman Spanish inquisition.”

Now that's just silly and hateful.  And it shouldn't escape anyone that none of these folks, Lee included, can give any example of why they oppose Feldblum. She has served in the EEOC since 2010. Surely they can come up with some example of her supposedly being hostile to evangelicals.

They won't because they can't. And meanwhile, EEOC business is being held up:

Without a quorum, the EEOC can’t issue new guidance documents like the workplace sexual harassment guidelines it issued after #MeToo gained steam last year. It can’t file amicus briefs in court or hire expert witnesses. And while regional EEOC offices can rule on smaller discrimination cases, the commissioners themselves have to rule on many larger cases that involve claims of systemic discrimination.