We are scared. Living in the state of California which has broad legal protections for LGBTQ individuals, it can be hard for some to grasp that LGBTQ people are still to this day not treated equally under the law in this country. The fact is, we are not. The swift and shameful actions by the U.S. Senate to confirm a Supreme Court justice whose unqualified past experience is interwoven with anti-LGBTQ hate groups just days before a major presidential election is not surprising. It is however one of the most blatant unveilings of a strategic path charted long ago to unravel gains made by the LGBTQ community and other marginalized communities.
I will spare you all the history lesson of the last century, but it’s important to that physical intimacy between same-sex couples was criminalized in the state of California until 1976, and wasn’t fully decriminalized in the United States until 2003. Up to that point, police officers could and did literally barge into a private residence and arrest a couple for sharing an intimate moment. That wasn’t that long ago. It was in 2003 that the Lawrence v. Texas case was ruled on by the Supreme Court stating that these state-sanctioned actions were a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
The Supreme Court has been instrumental in elevating legal protections for LGBTQ Americans with rulings ing varying degrees of legal protection through marriage in 2013 and 2015 respectively, and just this year granted a ruling that LGBTQ people are protected from employment discrimination. While the vast majority of Americans full equal protections for the LGBTQ community, the reality is the state of our community’s legal protections is a threadbare patchwork quilt across this nation and there is a coordinated effort to further its unraveling.
For years, anti-LGBTQ extremists have been placing both seemingly innocuous bills and blatantly oppressive pieces of legislation in cities, counties and states all across the country. These bills might typically have some measure of religious connotation to them or might be flatly referred to as FADA (First Amendment Defense Acts) or RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Acts). For a nation whose First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees religious freedom, these bills might seem redundant or banal. In truth, they are an attempt to test the waters of governing bodies and judicial oversight to see how far they can push their ideology. Their stated goals are to directly attack the LGBTQ community, deny access to reproductive care, and dismantle religious freedom in favor of monolithic and violently oppressive religious dogma.
If you think I’m being overly alarmist, how would you feel if you were being intimate with your spouse only to have police officers break down your door and arrest you purely for the physical expression of your love? In just the last few years literally, hundreds of these bills have been introduced in 40 states across the U.S. It’s called Project Blitz, and the playbook is available online. The ing of these pieces of legislation would be inconsequential if the LGBTQ community and other marginalized communities were able to rely on our court system to protect the minority.
Senate obstruction of would-be Obama-era judicial appointments meant that President Donald Trump inherited over 100 federal judicial vacancies, including a Supreme Court seat. Over the last four years, the Trump istration and Senate have been ramming through underqualified judicial appointments, many of whom are clearly connected to these fundamentalist groups and agree with their goals. They are finding a favorable company. Just this month Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito wrote that LGBTQ people have no right to equal protection under the law and left an open invitation for our recent legal gains to be challenged. Their words in a denial of cert issued on Oct. 5: “Several of the Court noted that the Court’s decision would threaten the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman.” The appointment of an openly anti-LGBTQ equality justice, Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, may very well spell the repeal of legal protections for LGBTQ people across this country. Religious freedom will be their sheep’s clothing.
This strategy seeks to harm not only the LGBTQ community. The health and well-being of women, religious minorities, Indigenous people, immigrants, communities of color, people with preexisting medical conditions and so many more are at stake. We may better understand the impact Barrett’s appointment will have on the LGBTQ community as next week the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the Fulton v. City of Philadelphia case, which looks at whether or not government funds can be used to allow a religious institution to discriminate with regards to adoption by LGBTQ couples.
We as a nation of diverse people must ask ourselves if the intent of religious freedom was to allow for the pursuit of liberty and justice for all, if it was meant to allow us all to thrive, or if it was intended to impose, oppress and deny access to life-saving services and care. LGBTQ people should not be restricted to the few states, counties and cities that have expressed legal protection, or the privacy of our homes to feel protected. As we’ve seen and lived through, if we go backward, even in our homes, we will not be safe. LGBTQ people are also people of faith. Like the rest of America, our religious beliefs are diverse. Interfaith organizing has been and must continue to be at the front of our movement, especially in this climate.
As Americans go to the polls, know that LGBTQ people are terrified for our future but committed to fighting injustice. We have been fighting within a rigged system. Our hopes are pinned not just to the outcomes of this election, but to the difficult and needed work on the other side. We are watching and waiting to see where the moral com of this nation points after election day. Whatever the outcome, we hope you will us in the long continuum of this intergenerational intersectional fight for freedom.
