My local hate group leader: John Stemberger re: the Equality Act

John Stemberger, 2017

via YouTube

John Stemberger (Florida Family Policy Council) is Florida's anti-LGBT hate group leader. Stemberger, you may recall, is so homophobic that he started a Boy Scouts of America (Trail Life) which excludes LGBT boys and non-Christians. God forbid Stemberger's sons had to mingle with gays and Jews in Scouting. Needless to say, Mr. Stemberger is opposed to the Equality Act. This comes as no surprise given Stemberger's past behavior.

Adoption:

Stemberger had a meltdown when Florida changed its adoption laws to comply with a 2010 court decision:

Florida was the last state in the Union to allow same-sex adoption in 2015

Marriage:

I thought that Stemberger was going to end himself in 2014 when marriage equality in Florida became inevitable. He lived; unhinged. Stemberger promised to fight same-sex marriage for 50 years if necessary. Just a reminder that our former AG, Pam Bondi, accepted a bribe from Trump not to investigate Trump University. She did everything possible to prevent gays from marrying. Breaking the law was okay. Gay marriage? Not so much.

The Equality Act:

…” Rather than solve a problem, H.R. 5 will open up Pandora’s Box in our country. The Equality Act adds “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of protected classes under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The legal affect of this is that almost no area of American public life—including education, employment, public accommodations, housing, medical care, non-profits, and federal funding for example—will be left untouched and deprived of liberty, privacy, safety, freedom and or dignity.

As you see, Mr. Stemberger, a Christian supremacist, is fond of baseless hyperbole. Apparently, religious freedom includes the freedom to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Without that “freedom” Stemberger asserts that people are “deprived of liberty, privacy, safety, freedom and or dignity.” Of course the freedom and dignity of LGBT people are irrelevant to this schmuck.

Following the usual blather (mostly it seems from Mad Mat Staver of hate group Liberty Counsel):

Threatens privacy, safety, and opportunities for women and girls. Biological men claiming to identify as women will have access to women-only intimate spaces like locker rooms, bathrooms, showers, and women’s shelters—giving easy access to sexual predators.

It would be a great deal simpler to say “transgender women” but that is not in the Christian Supremacy script. People do not pose as transgender in order to become sexual predators. However, people do become Christian youth counselors to prey on under-age boys and girls.

Undermines parental rights
Parents could lose custody of their gender-dysphoric child if they do not support their child’s desire to take puberty blocker and cross-sex hormones. Public education would be legally required to teach and operate in line with transgender ideology, regardless of parental opposition.

None of the above is true. The Equality Act has no effect on parental rights. Unfortunately, parents remain free to abuse their gender dysphoric children by not following sound medical advice. “[T]ransgender ideology” is hate speech.

Imbeds transgender ideology into federal law
As Ryan T. Anderson points out, the Equality Act “could impose a nationwide transgender bathroom policy, a nationwide pronoun policy, and a nationwide sex-reassignment health care mandate.”

Sure. And Ryan T. Anderson “could” become a Tibetan monk. Where does Anderson think transgender people have been peeing for decades? Regardless of the Equality Act, boors like Anderson remain free to misgender people and his “health care mandate” is baseless fiction. Assuming that he is quoted correctly Anderson is a shameless liar for the defense of the faith. We already knew that.

It would force hospital facilities, medical professionals, and insurance plans to provide gender-transitioning services, or be found guilty of unlawful discrimination.

Nonsense. It is comparable to saying that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forces dental coverage. Stemberger is an ambulance chaser but he is a lawyer (third tier Cumberland School of Law at Samford [Christian] University, 1991). He knows that he is lying through his teeth. Anything goes in defense of conservative Christian prerogatives.

Stemberger provides a link to “Tweetable” material including this gem:

The overriding lie is that Stemberger knows that Trump has already said that he will not sign the Equality Act into law. We don't even know if Mitch McConnell will allow it to come up for a vote. Stemberger knows that the GOP is still captive of the Christian right which means that there are not enough votes to pass this in the Senate. That might change in 2020, effective 2021. All this noise is about relevance and attracting donations.

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