By Allen Clifton | 1 June 2016

Forward Progressives

While the battle for true equality for the LGBT community is far from over, we’ve essentially reached the last stages where Republicans are now just mounting petty, last-ditch efforts to continue to cling to their outdated bigotry. So, while there’s still plenty of work that’s left to be done, the writing is on the wall and Republicans have lost this fight.

Unfortunately, ignorance rarely admits defeat easily.

Take for instance these “religious freedom” laws that many Republicans are passing in states across the country that are nothing more than their attempts to legalize discrimination against members of the LGBT community, under the guise of “religious freedom.”

Well, Mississippi is one of those states that recently passed one of these laws, considered one the most discriminatory in the country.

Naturally, it makes sense that Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant was “honored” by a hate group, Family Research Council, with their first ever “Samuel Adams Religious Freedom Award” for signing his state’s anti-LGBT law.

During Bryant’s acceptance speech he tried to blame “secular progressives” who realize that this country is ruled by the Constitution and not the Bible for trying to put pressure on him not to sign a law that blatantly violates the Constitutional rights of LGBT Americans.

“They don’t know us very well, do they?” Bryant asked. “They don’t know that Christians have been persecuted throughout the ages. They don’t know that if it takes crucifixion, we will stand in line before abandoning our faith and our belief in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So if we are going to stand, now is the time and this is the place.”

Yes, that’s a current Republican governor of one of our nation’s states who literally said that he and those like him would rather be crucified before accepting the Constitutional reality that, in the United States of America, LGBT Americans are owed the same rights as everyone else.

I’ve still yet to have one of these bottom-feeding bigots tell me how they’re “honoring Jesus Christ” by supporting discrimination against homosexuals when Christ never once spoke of homosexuality.

But it’s comments such as these that I fully believe should disqualify any elected official from holding office.

This country is a Constitutional republic, not a theocracy. Our laws are bound by the Constitution, not the Bible. So when people who are elected and swore an oath to uphold the Constitutional laws of our land flat-out say that they place the Bible before the Constitution, in my opinion, that should result in a violation of their oath and immediate removal from office.

It’s clear that when Governor Bryant signed this law, he wasn’t following the actual laws of our Constitution, he was following his own interpretation of his faith. And in this country, as the First Amendment clearly states, our laws cannot be based on religion.

Watch his comments below via Right Wing Watch:

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