A Memo to the GOP: God Doesn't Choose You to Legislate Discrimination

by Michael Jones · 2009-09-18 06:44:00 -0400
Topics:

When it comes to Republican politics nowadays, the word "God" is invoked about every fifteen seconds. This weekend, with the Family Research Council's "Value Voters Summit" happening, you can expect that rate to jump drastically. But while it's certainly expected that religion might inform one's politics, only a downright fool would suggest that God chose someone for office so that they could pass anti-gay laws.

Yet that's what's happening in Arizona. Gov. Jan Brewer, who took office earlier this year after former Gov. Janet Napolitano was appointed Secretary of Homeland Security, took a bold anti-LGBT action and decided to repeal all domestic partner benefits for statewide LGBT employees. The move kills domestic partner benefits for about 800 statewide workers, many of them same-sex couples. The Governor followed up her anti-LGBT action with a shot of religious craziness.

"God has placed me in this powerful position as Arizona's governor' to help the state weather its troubles," said Gov. Brewer. Then she goes on to thank the Lord that she lives in a country of Christianity. Because that's in the Constitution....er, wait. No it isn't. We're a country that supposedly celebrates the separation of religion and state.

Not to be outdone by the Governor of Arizona, former Miss California Carrie Prejean strutted into the Values Voter Summit to announce that God chose her to oppose gay marriage on national television. Prejean, celebrating her opposition to same-sex marriage, said about her beauty pageant answer trashing marriage equality, "I’m so proud of the answer that I gave. God chose me for that moment."

Enough already. God is not choosing politicians or former beauty queens to embrace anti-gay platforms, much like God didn't choose George W. Bush to be President and God didn't choose Kanye West to perform live music before a universe of admirers.

There's a great quote by an American theologian named Reinhard Niebuhr who spoke to the idiocy of people who claim that God is speaking to them to fulfill a political agenda.

"The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism," said Niebuhr.

Fanatics. That may be a pretty harsh word. But given the rhetoric of Gov. Jan Brewer and Carrie Prejean, it might just be on point.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Students, Get Your National Equality March On
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (14)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.