In an op-ed published Friday on The
Advocate's website, Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights
Campaign (HRC), described Attorney General Jeff Sessions' “religious
liberty” task force as an attempt to discriminate against the LGBT
community.
Late last month, Sessions announced
creation of the task force – which he will chair – saying that it
was needed because a “dangerous” movement is “challenging and
eroding our great tradition of religious freedom. … It must be
confronted intellectually and politically and defeated.”
In making the announcement during a
summit in the Department of Justice's Great Hall, Sessions was
surrounded by Christian conservative leaders opposed to LGBT rights.
“When Attorney General Jeff Sessions
stood shoulder to shoulder with some of the nation’s leading
anti-LGBTQ extremists last week to announce a new taxpayer-funded
'Religious Liberty Task Force,' he knew well enough to talk about the
effort in coded terms,” Griffin
said. “But to millions of LGBTQ people across the country, the
tactic and message was instantly recognizable as yet another
insidious effort to weaponize religion as a tool of discrimination
and relegate LGBTQ people and our families to second class
citizenship.”
Griffin said that the task force was
another example of how the Trump administration sees “LGBTQ people
as dispensable and unworthy of equal rights.”
“Over the last two years, Donald
Trump and Mike Pence have made it a priority to roll back our
progress towards LGBTQ equality in this country, and they've
shamelessly used religion as a tool of discrimination.”
“The right to believe is fundamental,
but the right to discriminate is not.”
“That’s why the Human Rights
Campaign submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the
Department of Justice on August 7 for all records associated with
this Task Force. Sessions’ history of working with anti-LGBTQ
extremists to advance an insidious agenda raises questions that
demand answers.”
“The Constitution already protects
the ability to exercise one's religion. What our Constitution does
not protect is using taxpayer funds to wield religion as a weapon of
discrimination,” Griffin concluded.
(Related: Jeff
Sessions defends group that backed baker who refused to serve gay
couple.)