The Manhattan Declaration and the Right's Return to the Culture Wars
If you take a few dozen Catholics, mix them up with a large pack of conservative evangelicals, throw in a former Nixon official who went to jail for obstructing justice, and add the woman who is the leading activist trying to keep marriage rights away from LGBT people, you get what's now better known as the Manhattan Declaration.
If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it is. It's the right-wing's new call to arms that is not only reviving the buzzword "culture wars," but is a sign that conservative religious leaders will stoop to the lowest levels imaginable to make sure that LGBT people are pushed back into the closet and that women's rights are sent back to the days of back alley abortions and "Mad Men" housewives.
What is the Manhattan Declaration? It's a statement put forward by upwards of 150 religious leaders -- from Catholic bishops including the Archbishop of New York, to conservative political legends like Dinesh D'Souza -- that says conservative religious folks are called by God to go nuclear in order to prevent abortion, same-sex marriage, stem-cell research and a host of what they call "fundamental truths."
"We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life," write the religious leaders.
Funny, but this document takes Jesus Christ and makes him the most partisan, political figure in history. Talk about deception -- they've taken a religious figure that spent just about his entire life fighting for the poor, and turned him into a gay basher.
The Manhattan Declaration is the right-wing's biggest attempt yet to take an older generation of culture warriors, and try to implant their homophobic values and beliefs onto a younger generation living now. U.S. News and World Report brazenly asks, "Can a Culture War Manifesto Reach a New Generation of Evangelicals and Catholics?" Therein lies the purpose of issuing a nuclear religious option -- the right-wing needs a new army of recruits to fight their agendas on abortion and same-sex marriage.
Here's what the Manhattan Declaration says about LGBT people: our relationships are "immoral sexual partnerships." LGBT people "erode marriage." Our sex lives are nothing more than "immoral conduct." And marriage for LGBT people is "not a civil right."
Oh, but of course, they mean all of that in the most loving way. "We have compassion for [LGBT people]; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity," the religious leaders write.
But if this is their idea of love and compassion, I'd be frightened beyond belief to see what they define as hatred.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) responded to the Manhattan Declaration by calling it what it really is: a document filled with misleading claims by conservative religious leaders who want to peddle discrimination.
"This declaration simply perpetuates the fallacy that equality and religious liberty are incompatible and that every step toward fairness for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is another burden on religious people," said Harry Knox, the Religion & Faith Program Director at HRC.
He's right. This is a document that lives and breathes fear. Conservative religious leaders see their lock and hold of discrimination as slipping, and they don't want to let go of it. So they make bogus claims that advances in LGBT rights can't happen without taking away the rights of religion. That's a downright lie, suggesting that the signers of the Manhattan Declaration ought to go back to Religion 101 and read their Ten Commandments.
But that would actually involve reading the Bible, instead of just using the thing as a weapon against marginalized groups.
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.
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