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Defining the Post-Marriage LGBT Equality Movement

With the U.S. Supreme Court set to hear oral arguments on four marriage cases in April and issue a decision by the end of June, LGBT activists are beginning to forge a new agenda for the post marriage world.
Topping that agenda is countering so-called religious freedom bills, like Michigan is facing with Senate Bill 04.
"This didn't come out of nowhere," says Katherine Grainger, a principal at the Civitas Public Affairs Group. "Anytime a group is moving towards access to rights, the first move is to try to block it… when that doesn't work they move to Plan B — it violates my religion."
Grainger made her comments at the 2015 LGBT Media Journalists Convening held in Philadelphia last weekend. The convening is funded by the Evelyn and Walter J. Haas, Jr. Foundation and brings reporters, activists and others, including Between The Lines, together annually to discuss the state of the LGBT equality movement and national trends. The Haas Foundation paid all the expense for BTL's attendance.
In support of her conjecture that the religious exemption argument is not new in responding to rights movements in the U.S., Grainger noted that following the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, southern states moved to create religious schools to circumvent desegregation. Within the first year of desegregation in Holmes County, Mississippi, she said the number of white students enrolled in public education dropped from 771 to 28 students. The following year, no white students were enrolled in public education.
Adding to the growing cloud of religious freedom laws is the control of hospitals by the Catholic Church, she said. Right now, one in six hospital patients in the U.S. is attended by a Catholic hospital medical service. The church has been a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, as well as condoms. The church is also an opponent to abortion.
In fact, in December 2013, a Muskegon woman sued the U.S. Conference of Bishops alleging their policy of opposition to abortion resulted in medical negligence in her pregnancy care. Tamesha Means, represented by the ACLU and the ACLU of Michigan, filed suit in federal court alleging that because of Catholic doctrine, she was sent home twice from Catholic hospitals in the county following an early commencement of birth. The fetus was only about four months gestation and had no chance of survival. Despite this, Means alleges in her lawsuit, doctors failed to inform her that an abortion was an option to address the issues. As a result she developed a serious infection.
The issue of excluding protections for LGBT people based on a person's faith is part of a larger assault on progressive movements, Grainger says.
"Whether it is on voter rights, LGBT, reproductive rights or anything to move the country forward in a progressive way, it is something they're interested in destroying," she says.
"There's a huge multi-billion dollar machine holding that all up," says Matt Foreman, of the Haas Foundation.
And intersectionality is a key issue, says Rev. William Barber. Barber is a minister in North Carolina and driving force behind that state's "Moral Monday" movement. It has resulted in hundreds of days of protests at the state capitol in that state, challenging many legislative actions targeting progressive growth. Barber was the keynote speaker at the conference.
"Extreme policies that roll-back human rights hurt us all," Barber says. He noted that Moral Monday had been successful in large part because the coalition of progressive groups involved saw an attack on one member as an attack on all members.

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