My post yesterday, “Anti-trans* woman uses Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to sue Planet Fitness for terminating her membership” (which I cross-posted at Daily Kos) provoked a response from the so-called “Christians” at RenewAmerica.com today.
The piece is written by Ellis Washington, a founding board member of Salt and Light Global, and is titled “Salt and Light Global targeted for defending woman expelled from Planet Fitness“. In it, he accuses me and Daily Kos of being “anti-Christian”.
Do Christians have religious rights?Last Tuesday a DailyKos blogger whose penname is “Eclectablog” wrote an incendiary rant titled, Anti-trans* woman uses Michigan civil rights act to sue Planet Fitness for cancelling her membership. In this anti-Christian diatribe Eclectablog cites to the original story…
Apparently this radical Progressive blogger is outraged that this woman wouldn’t just ignore her First Amendment rights (freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association), shut her mouth and disappear and allow the LGBT community to hijack a public company like Planet Fitness as their own private, personal club. […]
DailyKos trying to slander Salt and Light Global
In the interest of full disclosure, I am the Director of Salt and Light Global (SLG) and personally know David Kallman and William Wagner. Although I’ve known Wagner much longer, I consider both David and William colleagues and friends whose professional and Christian character is unimpeachable. Therefore, Eclectablog’s hateful diatribe posted today on his blog only reveals his evil intent to launch a spear [sic] campaign against Ms. Cormier’s religious beliefs and civil rights violations and Mr. Kallman’s constitutional obligation as her attorney to protect her First Amendment rights to the fullest extent of the law.
Conclusion: DailyKos stop the anti-Christian hatred
In conclusion, don’t allow DailyKos and Eclectablog’s anti-Christian hate speech to distort what is really going on with the conflation of the LGBT agenda with bona fide racial discrimination and racism suffered by Blacks and other racial minorities – It’s not about our legal and religious rights organization, Salt and Light Global. It’s not about what Eclectablog calls “right-wing Christian zealots try[ing] to inflict their worldview on others.” It’s not about Yvette Cormier trying to make the LGBT community pariahs when they work out at Planet Fitness. It’s about the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution and the legal history that the First Amendment and the entire Bill of Rights are based on – absolute principles of right and wrong and First Principles which presume an integration of legality and morality. When those transcendent, biblical moral principles are violated as in Planet Fitness’s “no judgment zone” policies, then despite the good intentions of the CEO and other high officials at Planet Fitness, this store “policy” amounts to a constitutional violation and invidious religious discrimination of “sincerely-held religious beliefs” by citizens who are opposed to the LGBT agenda. Therefore, these store policies must be struck down as patent civil rights violations in addition to being abuses of our First Amendment right of freedom of religion and freedom of association. […]
DailyKos, Stop the anti-Christian hatred now!
He spends an enormous amount of his column explaining why trans* people are mentally ill, that being transgender is a “psychosis” and how there is no such thing as transgender. But mostly he rants about the loss of liberty and freedom Christian zealots like him and Yvette Cormier experience at the hands of people like me. We are, according to Washington, denying them their Constitutionally protected rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.
These poor, put-upon, persecuted Christian bigots. Won’t anyone stand up to save them and protect their liberty and freedom to espouse vile hate and intolerance?!
The next thing you know, we’ll be passing laws preventing them from using the restroom or firing them because of who they are. I wonder what that feels like? Wanna know? Ask a trans* person.
For the record, I consider myself a Christian because I believe in the message of peace, love, and acceptance taught by Jesus Christ. I don’t attend church because of the hypocrisy (like that evidenced in Washington’s piece) I too often find there. I also consider myself a Taoist and, to some extent, a Buddhist. But I am not “anti-Christian”. I am, simply put, anti-hypocrite.
