FADA: The Wrong Way to Protect our Rights
Orwell’s 1984 was even more frightening when I reread it during the Bush administration. Amidst freedom fries and the Patriot Act, I saw traces of his infamous doublespeak: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Now, in the wake of Trump’s win and in a climate of increasing intolerance, those traces seem to be more like guidelines. Latest case in point: the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA). The First Amendment is specifically meant to guarantee freedom of speech, religion, and the press – among other things. It is perversely fitting, then, that FADA aims to override these protections with a law that restricts civil rights in the name of religious freedom, especially given that it promotes one religion’s values above all others.
More than just eroding the separation of church and state, FADA wants to bore a hole straight through it. Ironically, FADA protects people from government “discrimination” against their “right” to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. It is a direct assault on the landmark Supreme Court marriage equality win. Indeed, the act’s promoters care little for non-Christian beliefs and actively state that it is meant to reassert the enforcement of their belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.
As S.E. Smith on Truthout says:
FADA isn’t about protecting people of faith, but about legitimizing discrimination. The question isn’t “can I deny service to someone who doesn’t like same-gender marriage” but “can an employer fire someone for being in a same-gender marriage” or “can I refuse to rent a hotel room to an unmarried heterosexual couple.” The answer, under FADA, could be “yes.”
… That [also] means the government couldn’t revoke tax exempt status from organizations — like churches — that discriminate against LGBQT people. Nor could it set anti-discrimination policies for federal contractors.
Of course, this is not strictly a new development; it is instead a continuation of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993), and its more recent follow-up, the Supreme Court’s infamous Hobby Lobby decision which allowed a person (and therefore a corporation) to discriminate against people based on religious beliefs – including letting a Christian company refuse to provide its employees insurance coverage for morning-after pills and birth control methods despite Obamacare’s guarantees.
Unsurprisingly, Trump has pledged to sign FADA should it pass in Congress. Moving forward in the wake of the presidential election, it is vital that we remain vigilant in protecting both the Constitution and the civil rights that our forebears fought so hard to guarantee. We must not slide backwards; halting FADA and everything it stands for is a good place to start.