Last Thursday I posted a piece on SB916, a bill sponsored by state Senator Wayne Wallingford (R-27) that would allow every Tom, Dick and Harry businessman in the state to refuse service to folks they don’t approve of simply by claiming that the individuals in question offend their religious sensibilities. In that post I pointed out that Wallingford’s assertions that the bill was not intended to target the LGBT community were rather obviously specious.

In particular, Senator Wallingford claimed that the bill contained language that precluded its use as a defense in court cases against civil rights violations covered by Missouri’s anti-discrimination statutes. As I pointed out, though, the Missouri Revised Statutes (RSMO) Chapter 213 does not address the type of discrimination that Wallingford seeks to enshrine in Missouri’s law. Senator Wallingford was somewhat ineptly trying to deflect attention from the obviously distasteful goals of his proposed legislation and in doing so, showed that he has little regard for either the truth or the intelligence of most Missourians.

Protections for LGBT individuals are pretty scarce in Missouri – they’re sitting ducks for folks like Wallingford. When I wrote the post, I consulted Wikipedia which identified Missouri as one of the states that forbids employment discrimination based on sexual orientation – but, at the state level only, a distinction that I failed to make (hence the correction). There are currently no such protections for those employed by private enterprises. Missouri does, as I stated in the earlier post, extend hate-crimes protections to the LGBT community, and there is also a federal hate-crime law that protects LGBT individuals.

Folks who are revolted by Senator Wallingford’s effort to pander to the anti-gay bigots, can take heart that there are anti-Wallngfords in the legislature, namely those state representatives who continue to support HB1858, which, in the words of one of those supporters, Rep. Stacy Newman:

… would change the law regarding complaints filed wiht [sic] the Missouri Commission on Human Rights be [sic] revising the definition of discrimination to include unfair treatment based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It is wrong that the LGBT community can be fired from their job or evicted by their landlord in Missouri – that it would be legal to suffer that discrimination.  The House bill has never been granted a floor debate but every year the bill gains new sponsors and supporters.

There you have it: SB916 or HB1858. It’s up to us to decide – and to let our state legislators know what we’ve decided.

Conservatives have opposed extending civil rights protections in the past claiming that it grants “special privileges” to LGBT individuals. Bills like SB916, though, show us exactly why these laws are so necessary. We don’t need laws to protect heterosexuals qua heterosexuality because opportunistic politicians are unlikely to try to score political points by trying to take heterosexuls’ civil rights away – they’d be laughed out of office if they tried. Not the case for LGBT indivuals – as SB916 proves. We need laws like HB1858 to protect our LGBT citizens from individuals like Senator Wallngford and the folks who put him in office and continue to support his anti-gay antics and those of other folks who have decided that religion can be used as a club to suppress outsiders and minorities.

One could argue that creating a more inclusive environment via bills like HB1858 will help protect the folks who support legislation like SB916 from themselves. It is well recognized that such laws may comprise a double edged sword:      

If Christians really believe they are becoming a marginalized movement, why would they want to disempower marginalized people in the marketplace? It’s easy to codify your own biases when you’re part of the majority and get to be the one refusing services to others. But what if you’re the minority? What if others are turning you away because they think you are the abominable one?

Many Christians believe that the Book of Revelation predicts a coming time of persecution and evil. In the apocalyptic book’s 13th chapter, it is predicted that a time will come when Christians won’t be able to buy or sell in the marketplace. If Christians believe this time is coming, they must also ask, “How might such a reality be realized?” Could it be that they are unwittingly becoming the authors of their own demise?

Conservative Christian activists often argue that these bills put us on a ride down a slippery slope that could lead to the government forcing conservative Christian pastors to perform same-sex weddings against their wills. (Never mind that legal exemptions for houses of worship and pastors are woven deeply into American law or that there is no historical precedent for such predictions.)

But these prophets of doom only acknowledge one side of the slope. They fail to consider how these laws could be used against members of their own communities. If you are able to discriminate against others on the basis of religious conviction, others must be allowed to do the same when you are on the other side of the counter. You can’t have your wedding cake and eat it too.

Maybe Senator Wallingford’s bill, which has attracted lots of attention, admittedly mostly of the derisive variety, will serve a good end. It can help to make the case that we really do need legislation like HB 1858. It can also serve to open up a serious dialogue about what religious freedom is really all about and bring us back to a time, not so long ago, when churchmen actually understood that the doctrine of separation of church and state served to protect the churched as much as the unchurched.

Way back in 2006 Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill characterized the Missouri Senate as a “vast wasteland of Neanderthals.” I think a few Republicans legislators might have thought that McCaskill was praising their conservative chops, and that’s why members of both chambers of the Missouri General Assembly have been going all out to prove her right ever since. Take, for example, Rep. Rick Brattin’s (R-55) most recent attempt to undermine the teaching of evolution in our schools. He’s authored a bill, HB1472, to ensure the primacy of parental beliefs, specifically fundamentalist Christian belief about origins, over proven science. HB1472 would mandate that schools notify parents if evolutionary theory is taught, giving them the option of taking their children out of the classes. Since public school districts in Missouri can decide whether or not to teach evolution, this new bill would serve to undermine those districts that offer such instruction.*

Fighting the scourge of evolution seems to be Brattin’s main hobby; he’s been tilting at that particular windmill for some time, although his legislative efforts have mercifully been allowed to die quietly. His past bills differ from the latest, though, since the earlier ones attempted to mandate  teaching creationism or intelligent design. To give you an idea of the level of hilarity that Brattin is capable of producing, take a look his 2013 foray into the development of unscientific mandates for the teaching of science, The Missouri Standard Science Act. Dana Liebelson’s  Mother Jones write-up summarized a few – and only a few – of the howlers it contains:

HB 291, the “Missouri Standard Science Act,” redefines a few things you thought you already knew about science. For example, a “hypothesis” is redefined as something that reflects a “minority of scientific opinion and is “philosophically unpopular.” A scientific theory is “an inferred explanation…whose components are data, logic and faith-based philosophy.” And “destiny” is not something that $5 fortune tellers believe in; Instead, it’s “the events and processes that define the future of the universe, galaxies, stars, our solar system, earth, plant life, animal life, and the human race.”

Before we can say anything more about this legislation, it’s necessary to be very clear that evolution, whether or not religious fundamentalists like it (and most don’t), is settled science. As Real Clear Science notes in its discussion of settled science that is widely misunderstood, “the mountains of DNA sequence data generated over the past several decades serve as ‘slam dunk’ evidence. The fossil record, which is impressive but far from complete, isn’t even necessary anymore. DNA can tell the story of evolution all by itself.” (If you’ve heard stories about scientists who doubt the fundamental precepts of evolution, you might find that this well-sourced blog post by David H. Bailey puts them into perspective.) The theory of evolution is central to understanding modern biology, which means that if you want your children to be scientifically literate – or just plain literate – they need to know what it is and how it works. To suppress the teaching of evolution not only shortchanges the children themselves, but the future communities they will live in and serve.

Consequently, legislation like Brattin’s has the potential to, as the deputy director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), Glenn Branch, has noted, “eviscerate the teaching of biology in Missouri.” It also does so in a particularly objectionable way that depends on extending the concept of religious freedom past reasonable bounds. It’s as if I demanded that my child be exempted from learning geometry because I personally don’t believe in Euclid’s precepts.  

Brattin, who believes that the way evolution is taught is not “objective,” nevertheless describes his motivation in religious rather than objective terms, describing the teaching of evolution as “an absolute infringement on people’s beliefs … . What’s being taught is just as much faith and, you know, just as much pulled out of the air as, say, any religion.” While someone ought to give Rep. Brattin a primer that defines faith along with a few science terms (not to mention simple words like “objective”), it might also help reconcile him to the 21st century if he were to learn that evolution is not a problem for many religious folks who, unlike Brattin, understand that religion and science operate in different spheres. For such individuals, religion functions as a matter of faith and belief, while science consists of verifiable facts and, as Tom Krattenmaker put it in a USA Today column that excited a storm of angry comment from religious conservatives,  requires “no leaps of faith or life-altering commitments.”

As mind-bendingly stupid as this bill is, the sad fact is that in the unlikely event that Brattin finally gets some traction for his pet issue, it probably won’t make much difference one way or another for lots of Missourians. A segment on Kansas City’s KCTV news report on Brattin’s bill offered the following comments from students and parents from Brattin’s district:

But two teens from the Cass County town of Adrian said they don’t learn anything about evolution at their high school. When asked what they thought about teaching evolution, the one 16-year-old answered, “What’s that?” The other explained to the other, “It’s whether God is real or not.”

They said they think it would be good for students to learn about it.

The mothers of those two girls supported the bill, along with a number of others in the lawmaker’s home area.

“I definitely think parents should be notified if evolution is taught because I believe in creation,” said Drexel resident Tina Decavale.

Brandon Eastwood, of Harrisonville, echoed that support, and went a step further.

“Evolution is not taught in the Bible so it shouldn’t be taught in the class,” he said. “Even if I had to spend some time in jail I wouldn’t subject my kids to that nonsense.”

There but for the grace of enlightened school boards is the future for Missouri’s children. It is likely that the deficits will be made up in college – for those who go on to higher education – but those who don’t are condemned to ignorance. Don’t you think it’s time for some visionary state Representative, someone who is actually concerned about the state of education in Missouri as well as the future of young Missourians, to propose a standard that would mandate the teaching of established science, including the theory of evolution, in our schools? Where’s the anti-Brattin in Missouri? Too scared to come out of hiding and do something about the cycle of ignorance that produces sincere, passionate and thoroughly misguided politicians like Rick Brattin?

N.B. Here is a list of sources and materials on the teaching of evolution, creationism and intelligent design in schools compiled by the National Science Teachers Association. This site also has some interesting background.

* Sentence slightly edited for clarity.

Missourians who believe in live and let live when it comes to religion ought to know that Todd Akin, the GOP candidate for the Senate, is, theologically speaking,  best buds with one David Barton. Barton is the founder of Wallbuilders, an organization that, as Wikipedia puts it, “advocates the view that U.S. constitutional separation of church and state is a myth.”  Here’s a video of Akin and Barton discussing the obligation of religious leaders to speak out from the pulpit and lead their flocks on political matters:

This type of effort to shape political policy through the medium of fundamentalist Christian religion is typical of a strain of evangelical fundamentalism called “dominionism,” or Christian reconstructionism, which advocates for the establishment of a Christian theocratic government in the United States that would give religious institutions control over political, social and cultural life. (Sound like any other countries we know about? Perhaps Iran under the Imams or Afghanistan under the Taliban?) According to journalist Frederick Clarkson, under the dominionist/reconstructionist regime:

… society would feature a minimal national government, whose main function would be defense by the armed forces. No social services would be provided outside the church, which would be responsible for ‘health, education, and welfare.’ A radically unfettered capitalism (except in so far as it clashed with Biblical Law) would prevail. Society would return to the gold or silver standard or abolish paper money altogether. The public schools would be abolished. Government functions, including taxes, would be primarily at the county level.

Women would be relegated primarily to the home and home schools, and would be banned from government. Those qualified to vote or hold office would be limited to males from Biblically correct churches.

Take a look at the statements of a certain Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri and tell me Todd Akin (oops!) isn’t toeing the reconstructionist line right down the road – at least to the extent that he can and still manage to get elected.

Barton’s  styles himself an historian although he lacks the requisite academic credentials – he has a Bachelor’s degree in Christian Education. His contribution to the  reconstructionist movement has been to lend it legitimacy by purporting to show that the Founders intended the United States to be a “Christian Nation” in the reconstructionist sense. His scholarship has been repeatedly debunked in academic venues which, of course, has had little effect on the true believers – such as Todd Akin – who continue to rely on his scholarly veneer to justify their authoritarian goals, as well the more run-of-the-mill, right-wing politicians who find his willingness to give a biblical luster to their corporatist goals exceedingly covenient.

Yesterday, however, NPR’s All Things Considered aired a segment on Barton (worth listening to or reading in its entirety) that might help to shine a light on the pernicious nature of his undertaking and, at the same time, help to expose the squishy intellectual underpinnings of theocrats like Todd Akin. The program “fact-checked” Barton’s most quoted claims and found that they were almost all entirely unfounded. Further, they pointed out that his recent book, The Jefferson Lies, which was on the New York Times Best-Seller list, was withdrawn by its publisher because of the number of factual errors it contained.

All well  and good, shining a light on charlatans is always helpful, but considerations of truth and real scholarship aside, it’s unlikely that Barton will see his influence diminished any time soon – he’s too useful to the right-wing. And that’s a bad thing since  as John Fea, chairman of the History Department at evangelical Messiah College, and a fellow evangelical, pointed out during the NPR piece, Barton is a “danger because he’s using a skewed version of the past to shape the future.” Fea declared that Barton is:

… in this for activism, […].  He’s in this for policy. He’s in this to make changes to our culture.

And one of the tools reconstructionist activists like Barton will use to change our culture are simple souls like Rep. Akin – if they can keep him in Washington, that is.

Don’t get me wrong – politicians have a right to their religious beliefs, but not at the expense of our religious freedom – real religious freedom, not that self-indulgent, authoritarian crap coming from the Catholic Bishops and the “war on Christmas” fanatics these days, but the type of freedom that does not subject our children to Christian triumphalism in their schools, or the pretense that religious freedom amounts to trampling the rights of liberal Christians and non-Christians. David Barton’s lies aside, real historians agree that the Founders wanted us to have just that type of freedom.  

Sometime before the end of the month the Senate will be voting on a legislative amendment to the Affordable Care Act proposed by our own GOP Senator Roy Blunt, the Blunt-Rubio amendment, that proposes to deal with the Bishops’ disinclinaton to permit folks to purchase birth-control by allowing any insurance provider, religious, secular, what have you, to deny coverage for just abut anything as long as the provider has religious or moral objections. There’s lots of problems with this, of course, not least that it addresses a non-issue as far as any action that might threaten religious freedom, but Dave Weigel isolates one of the most serious problems:

Not to be too patronizing or anything, but the Constitution prohibits any bill establishing or restricting religious beliefs. Morals, though — that’s not in the Constitution, and that could mean anything. This creates an opening for Democrats. Greg Sargent talks to Elizabeth Warren, who walks right through it.

“I am shocked that Senator Brown jumped in to support such an extreme measure,” Warren told me by phone just now. “This is an all new attack on health care. Any insurance company could leave anyone without health care, just when they need it most… This is an extreme attack on every one of us. It opens the door to outright discrimination. It would let insurance companies and corporations cut off pregnant women, overweight guys, older Americans, or anyone – because some executive claims it’s part of his moral code. Maybe that wouldn’t happen, but I don’t want to take the chance.”

When you have regulations so loose that essentially anything goes, what do you have? The free-market anarchy so beloved of conservative ideologues, and so dear to the corporate types who benefit most from the loosening of all restraint. The Blunt-Rubio amendment owes little or nothing to any desire to preserve “religious freedom”; it’s simply part of the drive to restore the type of free-market anarchy that the Bush years were famous for, and for which we are all now paying the price.