Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are all about maintaining the “religious freedom” to establish and cultivate Jim Crow-esque approaches to the LGBT community. This desire to keep God’s boot on the necks of LGBT Americans was put on solid display Thursday as Republican leaders worked diligently to ensure the failure of an amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have voided a Republican “religious freedom” provision allowing federal contractors to discriminate against LGBT employees.
They succeeded… by a single vote, after seven Republicans were persuaded to change their votes from support for the amendment to against the amendment. Democrats in the U.S. House booed the aisle-jumping, chanting “Shame! Shame! Shame!”
The author of the amendment, New York Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, released a statement following the incident in the U.S. House, stating House Republicans “literally snatched discrimination from the jaws of equality.” He also took to Twitter to voice his frustration.
Every single Republican who voted against my amendment should be ashamed of themselves. Your children will remember your hate.
— Sean Patrick Maloney (@RepSeanMaloney) May 19, 2016
My amdt was simple – prevent fed tax $ from supporting businesses that discriminate. GOP supported hate very blatantly. SHAME
— Sean Patrick Maloney (@RepSeanMaloney) May 19, 2016
Rep. Maloney is the co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus and the first openly gay member of Congress from New York.
The vote corralling also spurred ire from U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who released a statement commenting on Republican commitment to all things anti-LGBT.
“Evidently Speaker Ryan’s promises of regular order mean nothing, when regular order means a majority of the House standing up to protect LGBT Americans from bigotry. House Republicans’ outrageous and cowardly actions today utterly expose the reality of their hateful agenda. The American people will not forget how hard Republicans worked to target LGBT Americans for discrimination.”
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., pleaded ignorance as to whether or not Republican leadership browbeat House Republicans to change their votes. Whether or not GOP leadership strong-armed Republicans in the U.S. House to change their votes will ultimately amount to noting, as President Obama will veto the NDAA if it included the “religious liberty” provision.
“This Administration is committed to promoting equal employment opportunities for all Americans regardless of who they are or who they love while at the same time preserving longstanding safeguards in the law for religious liberty…”
This whole “let’s shit on the LGBT community” quest Republicans are on is beyond infuriating. For a party so concerned with the rights of American citizens, they sure are doing a great job at making sure a group of historically oppressed people who only want equality never realize their goals. If this were the 1960s, they’d be fighting against African-American equality the same way. If this were the 1860s, they’d be actively working to screw over abolitionists.
The definition of a conservative is someone who seeks to maintain, not change. They can dress their bigotry in any cloak they wish, but at the end of the day, this is what the Republican brand of “religious freedom” looks like:
h/t ThinkProgress
