During the (really very silly) brouhaha over Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty late last year, Jindal weighed in on behalf of the Louisiana reality TV star. A&E's (very brief) suspension of Robertson was proof that it didn't "believe in the First Amendment."

"Will churches in America even be able to remain part of the public square in a time when their views on sin are in direct conflict with the culture," Jindal will ask tonight, "and when expressing those views will be seen as hiding hateful speech behind religious protections?" That's precisely how Robertson was viewed by more liberal opponents, in his Duck Dynasty intervention — as defending the hateful speech of Robertson under the guise of religious expression. (What Robertson said, in part: "It seems like, to me, a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man's anus.")

The dichotomy Jindal presents is real. Some religious people who don't like homosexuality don't want to have to accept homosexuals as equals. Earlier today, we reported on a law passed by the Kansas state legislature that would allow businesses to discriminate against gay people on religious grounds. For religious people who take exception to homosexuality, that's seen as a real need, and it's the sort of thing that Jindal praises at other parts of his speech.

But the net effect is precisely that discriminatory behavior and hateful beliefs are shielded under the guise of equality. The Kansas legislator who introduced the state's bill declared that it was a protection against discrimination, that "There have been times throughout history where people have been persecuted for their religious beliefs because they were unpopular. This bill provides a shield of protection for that."

There are intricacies to the Hobby Lobby birth control case that don't exist in efforts to, say, keep gays from even shopping at a store. But Jindal will defend the latter behavior, too, according to Politico: "He also will blast the New Mexico Supreme Court for ruling last August that a wedding photography business violated the state’s Human Rights Act by refusing to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony."

This is one of those occasions in which replacing "same-sex" with "interracial" and "gay" with "black" is revelatory. If Southern racists in, say, Louisiana, had pointed to Biblical passages in defense of segregation, where would Jindal have come down on the issue? Was the elimination of Jim Crow also a "silent war"?

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.