Left-wing gay and transgender rights groups are simply overjoyed at the fact that a Republican member of Congress, Rep. Chris Stewart, just introduced a landmark anti-discrimination bill.
Just kidding: They’re actually frothing at the mouth and melting down — reminding us once more that they are really just front groups for the Democratic Party.
The controversy stems from Stewart’s introduction of a new bill dubbed “Fairness for All.” It’s a comprehensive, eminently reasonable update to federal civil rights law that would add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes, yet carve out important exceptions to protect religious liberty. The bill comes with the backing of numerous conservative and religious groups, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church). It would have been unimaginable, even a decade ago, for such conservative institutions to spearhead an important gay rights campaign.
But in a sadly typical display of partisan hackery, almost all of the left-wing activist groups that purport to care about gay and transgender rights have come out swinging against the legislation. The so-called Human Rights Campaign, the American Civil Liberties Union, GLAAD, and other left-leaning groups signed a joint letter denouncing the legislation in almost apocalyptic terms.
The coalition called the compromise gay and transgender rights bill “deeply dangerous,” and said they “strongly oppose it.” That’s right: The self-styled official LGBT lobby has come out swinging against a massive breakthrough in gay and transgender rights. Why? Well, basically just because it was introduced by a Republican and doesn’t spit on Christians.
This is sad and shameful. First, the groups lie about the legislation in bad faith, saying it would erode existing civil rights protections and harm people of faith, when literally nothing could be further from the truth. Second, their over-the-top condemnation of the bill doubles down on the hyperpartisan nature of the debate over gay rights and slams the door shut on meaningful dialogue or compromise across the aisle.
Of course, it’s not exactly surprising to see groups such as HRC and the ACLU choosing their partisan allegiance to Democrats over actual progress. After all, HRC is the same group that smears Republican lawmakers as “anti-LGBTQ” for their stances on unrelated issues such as immigration and Planned Parenthood funding. And the ACLU long ago abandoned its principles for partisanship, with many of its members and employees now opposing the very due process and free speech rights that the organization was founded to protect.
Although the latest stance by self-purported “LGBT rights groups” against, well, LGBT rights is certainly dismaying, it actually makes perfect sense. These groups subsist on outrage — quite literally, the oppression narrative is what keeps their lights on and donors’ checks coming in.
Thus, they fundamentally don’t want to see the issue of gay and transgender rights solved in any meaningful way, as that would mean losing one of their most crucial fundraising topics. So they instead tout their support for the so-called Equality Act, a hyperpartisan bill filled with poison pills and intended to crush religious liberty.
Activists know it’ll never pass, but actually, that’s kind of the point.
Conservative economist Thomas Sowell explained the problem that plagues political nonprofit organizations in his book Basic Economics:
It’s just sad that actual gay and transgender people will continue to pay the price for left-wing activist groups choosing partisanship over progress.
