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    Religious freedom scams

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    Lee A. Daniels

    Religious freedom scams

    By Lee A. Daniels, NNPA Columnist

    Pity the poor, put-upon anti-gay bigots.

    Worried by the recent steady march of federal court decisions advancing the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, they tried to copy the Supreme Court majority’s flim-flam maneuver of last year in the Hobby Lobby case: By asserting a business is a “person,” they intended to enable business owners to discriminate against gay and lesbian prospective customers, and anyone else under the cover of “religious belief.”

    The blowback from corporate giants, religious denominations, cities and states, associations and organizations, and prominent entertainment and literary figures produced a thunderous roar succinctly expressed by the headline of the March 31 front-page editorial of the Indianapolis Star newspaper. In huge letters, it blared: “Fix This Now”

    Suddenly, faced with the likelihood of devastating economic boycotts, the two states’ governors and state legislatures quickly complied. By week’s end last week they had amended those particular so-called religious freedom restoration laws to declare they couldn’t be used to discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. (However, neither did either legislature enact specific statutes barring discrimination against, gays, lesbians and transgendered people.)

    But no one on the right side of history should think this ends the anti-gay rights campaign. Nor should they forget this episode’s lessons.

    For one thing, it’s underscored the true purpose of these “religious freedom” laws, which now exist in 19 other states and are being considered in an additional 14. That purpose, with the U.S. Supreme Court set to rule on same-sex marriage by this June, is to provide the anti-gay forces a means of escaping compliance with the seemingly inevitable affirmation of same-sex marriage by the federal judiciary.

    Secondly, these wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing laws offer further proof that the GOP down to its very roots in state and local communities has devolved from a political party ruled by the old traditions of give-and-take politics crucial to the functioning of a democratic society. It’s become one driven by an unceasing winner-take-all attitude that’s only barely concealed beneath a thin veneer of ultra-conservative religious dogma.

    Further, we should remember that the justifications for these laws are classic examples of the “hustle” used to pretend bigotry is not bigotry: those who want to discriminate against a particular group claim it’s that group, backed by “the government” who are “victimizing” them.

    So, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence could assert, shortly after he signed the original state law, that “many feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action” in forcing them to accept gays and lesbians as customers of their businesses.

    One doesn’t have to be that well-versed in the Southern massive-resistance campaign against the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s to note the tawdry similarity: That region’s politicians also vociferously claimed that they were defending white citizens’ against attack by the federal government. And, as numerous other commentators have noted, many Southern Christians cited Biblical passages to justify their racism.

    The rationales for today’s anti-gay laws are just as despicable. Their advocates claim they’re needed because, as Eric Miller, executive director of the conservative group Advance America, said they could help Christian bakers, florists and photographers avoid punishment for “refusing to participate in a homosexual marriage.”

    Got that? Miller contends that any business owner who sells an item to or performs a service for a customer thereby becomes a “participant,” and “involved” in whatever it is the customer proceeds to do with the item. If you think that’s silly, look up some of the segregationists’ rationales for all the grand and petty laws of Jim Crow for further proof that bigotry is impervious to logic

    The historian Jarret Ruminski ended his recent column on this latest effort to cloak intolerance in law with these words: “If I wanted to argue from a religious standpoint, I’d point out that rabid anti-gay stances conflict with Jesus’ injunctions to ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ And to ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’ Finally,” he wrote, “if I wanted to argue from the standpoint of basic human decency, I’d argue that love is always better than hate, and that hate shrouded under the banner of good intentions and blind moral absolutism is especially devious.”

     

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    Carma Lynn Henry Westside Gazette Newspaper 545 N.W. 7th Terrace, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33311 Office: (954) 525-1489 Fax: (954) 525-1861

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    This College Chaplain Fills The Pews By Teaching, Not Preaching Lawrence Lockett Jr., Morgan State University chaplain. Credit: Lawrence Lockett Jr. via LinkedIn By REV. DOROTHY S. BOULWARE (Source: Amsterdam News) It’s understandable for parents of strong faith to worry about the spiritual lives of their children who’ve gone away to college. After all, it’s easy for a young person, perhaps on their own for the first time, to suc-cumb to the temptations of partying late on Saturday night and sleeping in on Sunday morning. But Minister Lawrence Lockett Jr., chaplain at Morgan State University in Baltimore, is packing them into the pews most Sundays. He is engaging them in lively ways during the week. And students are joining the choir, accompanying worship on various instruments, and serving as readers and leaders throughout the service. It is by the grace of God for sure, but also by the loving service of Lockett, who’s beginning his second year as the school’s director of chapel. He has grown his flock from the 25 or so students who showed up at his first services to more than 200 each Sunday. Sometimes, it’s standing room only. “We’ve been trying to figure out what to do next because on Easter Sunday we had 342 people, and some were standing in the back,” he said. Word In Black talked to Lockett about the secrets of his success: how his adjustment of Sunday ser-vices got people into the pews, why his philosophy for guiding students on their spiritual journey centers on independent thought, and how his “Spin the Block” initiative is shaking things up on campus. The in-terview has been edited for length and clarity. Word in Black: The first thing we want to know is, how do you get so many young people to chapel every Sunday?. Lawrence Lockett: Well, first of all, I changed the time of service from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. I realized a lot of the students like to sleep in late. It gives them time to do whatever they need to do. I’m sure many of them still like to party hearty over the weekend. So they have a good chance just to kind of refocus, recali-brate, get themselves lunch, and then come over to the chapel for service. When I started in November, maybe 20-25 students came, but now it’s over 200 that come every Sun-day, and it’s pretty cool. So now we’re repositioning ourselves to go after the freshman class this year. If we have the same success as last year, there’s definitely not going to be any room. Word in Black: Tell me about pastoring on a college campus. Lawrence Lockett: Morgan actually started as a biblical institute, so the Christian traditions have al-ways been here. As a pastor or shepherd, I’m walking students through their questions, not always just trying to preach answers to them. It’s about being vulnerable. I tell them I was in their same position, just trying to figure it out. And it’s not me just trying to give them answers. Having been there helps me really walk with them and anchor them in the storm of life that’s going to come. I want them to understand that their soul really matters. A lot of students focus on mental health, but they really need to focus on spiritual health as well. It should be one and the same. So I’ve been trying to preach that, if anything, spiritual health is just as important as your mental health. But we do encour-age the use of the counseling center, for sure, if there is a mental health crisis. WIB: What does Monday through Friday look like for you? LL: Mondays, we are usually off because of Sundays. On Tuesdays, we have Bible studies, so I’ll host a Bible study at noon along with my colleagues that work in the chapel. And then, I’m teaching a class called Hip-hop and the Gospel on Tuesdays at 2:30 p.m., dealing with mixing culture and religion. On Wednesdays, we do something called “breath and balance,” which is just a meditative type of pro-gram with breathing exercises as stress relievers. We work with the School of Nutrition Science and the food resource center so that the students get a nice free meal and practice breathing exercises and meth-ods to feel good about the day. For Thursdays, we started something called the mosaic, in which we have different campus ministers gather in small groups, just like a mosaic painting. So the students who come on Sundays then get plugged into small groups on Thursdays. And on Fridays at 1 p.m., we do prayer for Muslims.. We have an imam lecture and then lead in corporate prayer. It’s a good mix. WIB: What is “Spend a Block?” Didn’t you receive an award for it? LL: That started last year. We just basically do services outside: outside the residence halls, in the quad, wherever it may be. Honestly, worship on a college campus looks different than it did 20 or 30 years ago. Students want something real and authentic, something they can gravitate to, and something that’s convenient. So when we’re outside, people are like, “What’s all the noise outside? What’s all the music?” Then they come outside, and there are chairs, so they grab one and sit and enjoy the service. We come to them. They don’t have to come to us. At the very beginning of the semester, we do services outside the four resi-dence halls. And that kind of gives us a steamroll into homecoming week. And we’ve seen a lot of success because of that. WIB: What should I expect when I arrive for Sunday service? LL: You’re gonna see a lot of involvement with students. I’ve learned that students like to feel invested, and they want to participate in what’s going on. They don’t want to be told by adults what they should and shouldn’t do. So when you go to the service, you’ll see our praise team full of students. You’ll see a choir full of students. You’ll see students reading scripture. You’ll see students giving testimonies. And then I’ll come in and give a sermon, or I’ll have a guest friend or a guest preacher come in to do the sermon. But you’re gonna see a lot of student involvement, and I think that also assisted with a lot of the growth be-cause when they see fellow students, they understand they’re just like me, and if they can do it, I can do it. WIB: What about musicians and choir? LL: The musicians are also students. They say, “Hey, I love to play. I wanna use my gifts in some way, shape, or form.” And they’ll ask whether or not there’s a spot for them. And we say absolutely. And there is a chapel choir. Some of the members are also members of the university choir. WIB: What is the “next” you see for the chapel? LL: I want the students to know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and make a difference. The chapel really is the heartbeat of the campus, and I want students to know more about where faith, hope, and belonging really stem from. 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