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trotsky

(49,533 posts)
Thu Mar 19, 2015, 10:49 AM Mar 2015

A Tale of Two States: Religion and Discrimination

http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2015/03/uw-religion-today-a-tale-of-two-states-religion-and-discrimination.html

Despite support by the Wyoming Business Alliance, major employers and the Wyoming State Senate, this session, the Wyoming House of Representatives defeated Senate File 115, which prohibited discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation.

The main opposition to the bill was religious. The Wyoming Catholic Diocese distributed an insert for church bulletins against the bill and the Wyoming Pastors Network lobbied to defeat it, although the Wyoming Association of Churches supported the bill.

...

The Utah legislature, which has a Republican super-majority like Wyoming, passed two bills concerning gay legal rights. The first, SB296, resulted from negotiations among the Mormon Church, LGBT representatives and legislators. The bill prohibits discrimination against gays in employment and in housing. Gays cannot be fired by employers for coming out or marrying. This is what the Wyoming bill would have done.

...

This kind (the Utah bill) of win-win legislation can be successful when religious groups stop trying to deny rights to their opponents and work with them, even those they consider “sinners.” At no time in the negotiation process did Mormon Church officials back off from or downplay their theological and moral conviction that marriage should only take place between a man and a woman; they simply recognized the humanity and human rights of their opponents.


This is why so many of us speak out against religious privilege and the classification of religious beliefs as special and beyond criticism. Human rights come first.
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A Tale of Two States: Religion and Discrimination (Original Post) trotsky Mar 2015 OP
R&K nt longship Mar 2015 #1
"The main opposition to the bill was religious." As is Oppo to most progressive legislation. AtheistCrusader Mar 2015 #2
Claims that religious people are often opposed to this kind of bill Lordquinton Mar 2015 #3

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
2. "The main opposition to the bill was religious." As is Oppo to most progressive legislation.
Fri Mar 20, 2015, 11:05 AM
Mar 2015

If you asked ANYONE on the street what political group led the opposition to a bill like that, I'd be shocked if you ever got an answer other than the religious right.

If you did, check carefully, you may have found a lizard-person in disguise from another planet, scoping us out to see if we'd make a suitable larder.

Lordquinton

(7,886 posts)
3. Claims that religious people are often opposed to this kind of bill
Sat Mar 21, 2015, 01:42 AM
Mar 2015

are dwarfed by the fact that these kinds of bills are almost 100% religiously backed. Anyone who tries to play down that fact has an agenda they are pushing.

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