Pride Month kicked off yesterday. Across the country, we’ll see special events and parades.
Pride has always been about fighting for LGBTQ+ rights and celebrating the LGBTQ+ community. This year, it can be hard to have a celebratory mood when we look at what’s happening at the national level. The Supreme Court is codifying anti-LGBTQ+ bias under the guise of “religious freedom,” state legislatures are considering anti-transgender bills and members of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies are facing a hostile White House.
People sometimes ask about the connection between LGBTQ+ rights and church-state separation. It definitely exists. Properly construed, separation of church and state means that no one should ever have to live under the laws of someone else’s religion. Our laws should always have a secular rationale – and laws curbing LGBTQ+ rights almost always fail that test because they’re based on religion.
There was a time when the Supreme Court respected this standard. In a 1971 case, Lemon v. Kurtzman, the high court devised a three-part test for determining church-state violations. The first prong stated that a law must have a valid secular purpose. (Unfortunately, the court no longer embraces what became known as the “Lemon Test.”)
During the debate over marriage equality, Americans United challenged Christian Nationalists to articulate a secular reason why two consenting adults of the same gender should not be allowed to marry. They were unable to do so. At the end of the day, all their arguments went back to the Bible – or, more accurately, their narrow interpretation of that book.
The Bible is important to millions of Americans, but in a secular democracy, it must never be the basis of our laws. Anchoring laws on biblical principles requires someone to interpret those principles because, as a moment’s thought will demonstrate, people don’t agree on what the Bible says. (That’s why we have so many different versions of the Christian faith.) Are we to have a council of clerics to determine which faith has the “right” view? That way theocracy lies.
AU’s view is actually pretty simple: Adults should be able to form the relationships they want and live their lives free from religious coercion. Everyone must have the right to decide what role, if any, religion will play in their lives. The most private and intimate parts of our lives are no one else’s business.
Most Americans agree. In recent years, we’ve seen a steady increase in support for LGBTQ+ rights. A poll taken last year by Gallup, for example, found that 69% of Americans support marriage equality, while 29% oppose it.
Much work remains. The Trump administration has launched an appalling series of assaults on transgender rights, and Christian Nationalists continue trying to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized marriage equality. But we are not going back.
Happy Pride!
P.S. You can learn more about how AU defends LGBTQ+ rights here.
