Progressive Anti-Christian Group Attacks First Amendment Defenders

A progressive anti-Christian group has produced a report purporting to expose various public interest law firms involved in litigation defending individuals and businesses under attack from homosexual pressure groups and Democratic politicians.

Political Research Associates’s report, “When Exemption is the Rule: The Religious Freedom Strategy of the Christian Right,” accuses Christians of wanting to use government to “preserve religious homophobia.” The report argues that Christians want to throw pastors in jail who officiate at homosexual weddings. The group describes the “machinations” of Christians to set up a “theocracy.”

The report specifically targets mainstream public interest law firms like Alliance Defending Freedom, the Becket Fund, and Liberty Counsel and accuses these groups of lawyers with “trying to appropriate religious freedom to justify discrimination.”

The sexual left considers the fight over religion to be of paramount importance, as the homosexual agenda moves into employment discrimination. So-called “sexual orientation and gender identity law” are being considered around the country that would force school districts to allow boys in dresses to pee in the little girl’s room. These laws would also force faith-based groups to hire open homosexuals, even if doing so would violate their deeply held religious beliefs.

As homosexual marriage has progressed, men who were not known to be homosexuals are now announcing their weddings, which then comes as a surprise to their faith-based employers. There is a move afoot to force the Catholic Church to retain a music director who married another man. The Church claims a religious exemption under the law.

At issue is the question of whether Christians in private or in business should be forced to accept public policies that are at odds with their religious views. The United States has a long history of allowing religious exemptions for individuals and groups that find certain policies onerous. The onus has been on the government to demonstrate that the issue is of paramount importance and that the violation of an individual’s religious freedom is the “least restrictive” way to achieve public policy goals.

Before the rise of Big Gay, this was a largely non-controversial issue. Democrats and Republicans banded together to pass the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In fact, that bill, now widely derided by the left, was introduced by liberal New York Senator Charles Schumer. When homosexual pressure groups began to balk at the law, the Democrats backed away too.

Political Research Associates is led by Tarso Luis Ramos, a journeyman leftist who has fought against what he calls “colorblind ideology” and in support of “color-led” organization. Ramos founded PRA to expose groups he says are working against human rights. Ramos and his colleagues believe gay marriage supplants First Amendment protections.

Ramos and his colleagues at the $600,000-a-year group are especially concerned that groups like ADF and the others are rapidly growing with bulging coffers and expanded staffs of lawyers. The sexual left had predicted the demise of pro-marriage groups after the Obergefell decision last June imposing homosexual marriage on the country.

Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter @austinruse.