As Goes Texas, So Goes the Nation When It Comes to LGBTQIA+ Rights?

In all the brouhaha of the current political chaos of Texas, between suppression of voters, an electricity grid that is still not working, and the successful shutting down of abortion clinics, there is a not-too-quite campaign to stop much of the progress made by those of us in the LGBTQIA+ community in the US, from attacking those in the transgender community, to hollowing out LGBTQIA+ marriage. 

To begin, as reported by Craig Huber of Spectrum News in Texas on Sept. 21, 2021, TX Attorney General is suing the Biden Administration because of the recent release (June 15, 2021), of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which states, among other things, "that transgender employees must be permitted to use bathrooms, locker rooms and showers that correspond to their gender identity. In addition, transgender employees cannot be prohibited from dressing in a manner that corresponds to their gender identity... Misuse of preferred gender pronouns may be deemed harassment under the guidance." 

Attorney General Paxton's response? 

“This unlawful guidance increases the scope of liability for all employers, including the State of Texas in its capacity as an employer. Under our system, States have the sovereign right to enact their own policies regarding things such as bathroom usage, and this is an extreme federal overreach by the federal government,” Paxton wrote in a news release announcing the lawsuit. 

While Mr. Paxton is wanting to make this about "states rights," and "protecting women and children," declaring the Federal guidelines are "subjective," this is all in compliance with the "guidance (citing) the June 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County. The court ruled in favor of a landmark civil rights law that protects gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination in employment."

For more information, go to: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/news/2021/09/21/texas-ag-ken-paxton-sues-biden-administration-over-lgbtq-workplace-guidance.

Furthermore, from the blog, them.us, Nico Lang reported on Sept. 20, 2021, that the former Texas Solicitor General, Jonathan Mitchell, who brought about SB8, the new anti-abortion bill, also wants to reverse the court rulings like Lawrence v. Texas (reversing anti-sodomy ruling), and Obergefell v. Hodges (reversal of same sex marriage): 

"Former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell referred to its 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas as “court-invented rights” in a July 29 amicus brief urging SCOTUS judges to overturn Roe v. Wade. The 6-3 ruling in Lawrence nullified laws in states like Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma outlawing same-sex intercourse, thereby legalizing gay sex in all 50 states. (As of 2014, 12 states still had not wiped their unconstitutional sodomy bans from the books, however.)

Writing on behalf of the right-wing group Texas Right to Life, Mitchell favorably claimed that overturning Roe would also imperil rulings like Lawrence and Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

“These ‘rights,’ like the right to abortion from Roe, are judicial concoctions,” he said, “and there is no other source of law that can be invoked to salvage their existence.”

Johnson believes he has found a willing ear to change things on the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) in the person of Assoc. Justice Alito, who is a conservative jurist who would only be too glad to overturn Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges, from recent reports. 

As some people in the LGBTQIA+ community have rightly reported, the reason that there are so many of these "religious rights" and "religious freedom" bills come up around the US is because they are anti-LGBTQIA+ bills. Based on "religious freedoms" state laws, businesses don't have to deal with anyone in the LGBTQIA+ community, beyond cakes and flower arrangements. It is meant to hollow out any of the advances we've made so far.

Friends, as goes TX, so goes the nation? 

And what are the churches saying and doing to raise concern about such judicial actions and these new laws? 

Nothing that I've heard or seen on any denominational websites. 

We must act now, before what goes on in TX becomes the law of the land.