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The Religious Right Operative Who Helped Write Utah’s Nondiscrimination Law

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Was the nondiscrimination/religious freedom law in Utah really the “historic compromise” it’s being touted as, or a Trojan Horse for the Religious Right’s agenda? There now seems to be little doubt with the discovery that one of the law’s authors has spent years working with the country’s most prominent Religious Right leaders and groups to advance right-to-discriminate laws across the country.

After my article last week asserted that the much-hailed Utah LGBTQ rights law was really an attempt by the national Religious Right to gain legitimacy for their agenda to redefine religious liberty as a religious license to legally discriminate, many have begun looking into how the bill actually came into existence.

As Queer Nation recently pointed out, Robin Fretwell Wilson, a law professor at the University of Illinois, has a long history of seeking to develop loopholes in civil rights laws. In 2014, as the proposed RFRA in Arizona was causing national headlines for its provisions allowing both private and government individuals to opt-out of civil rights and public accommodation laws if done so for religious beliefs, Wilson and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) teamed up to send a letter to Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer, claiming the law was being “egregiously misrepresented.” ADF (formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund back when it was working as part of the legal team defending California’s Prop 8, which stripped marriage rights from same-sex couples), was one of the authors of the Arizona bill. Following massive protests and national outcry, that bill was eventually vetoed by Governor Brewer, but less than a month later a nearly identical bill became law in Mississippi and ADF has worked to pass similar legislation in over a dozen states since.

In 2008, Wilson teamed up with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty—the group behind the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby case—to co-edit their book Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts, where she claimed states must proactively pass “conscience clauses” for religious freedom—the right for individuals, business owners, and government employees to use their religious opinions to legally discriminate against others.[1]

Wilson was more explicit in an op-ed to The New York Times, following the state legislature’s passage of same-sex marriage in 2011. “Without such [individual religious exemptions],” Wilson argues, “groups that hew to their religious beliefs about marriage would be at risk of losing government contracts and benefits and would be subject to lawsuits from private citizens.” She goes on to claim that organizations receiving government funding should never be in danger of losing those tax dollars just because they discriminate against LGBTQ people.

In 2010, Wilson authored a paper in the Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy titled Insubstantial Burdens: The Case for Government Employee Exemptions to Same-Sex Marriage Laws, in which she lamented that (at that point) “not a single state has shielded the government employee at the front line of same-sex marriage, such as the marriage registrar who, if she has a religious objection to same-sex marriage, will almost certainly face a test of conscience.” She concludes with what she believes to be a fair scenario: “Same-sex marriage applications comprise a miniscule part of the overall workload in the local marriage registrar’s office. If that office is staffed by three clerks, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and only Faith has a religious objection to assisting with same-sex marriage applications, allowing Faith to step aside when no hardship will result for same-sex couples is costless.” This, of course, ignores the vast implications of allowing a publicly-funded government employee to deny civil rights to citizens—not to mention the real threat of “Hope” and “Charity” following “Faith’s” lead. Wilson also took it a step further in her 2014 paper, Marriage of Necessity: Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty Protections, where she advocates for the Religious Right to focus on inserting its corrupted view of religious freedom into state laws.

Wilson is also famous for co-writing an op-ed in The Washington Post in 2014 with Bradford Wilcox, claiming that if women want to stop being sexually abused, they should just get married. Co-author Bradford Wilcox is currently the head of the Religious Right’s “National Marriage Project.” But until 2012 he was a director at the Witherspoon Institute, where he played an integral role in the creation of the thoroughly-debunked study by Mark Regnerus, which claimed that children of same-sex parents turn out much worse than children of opposite-sex parents. Wilcox not only acted as an advisor on the project, but was a paid consultant.

And speaking specifically about the Utah law she helped write, Wilson went so far as to lay out that “if the religious right does not believe that they are going to have those [religious exemption] protections, it cannot push forward the other rights.”

Wilson’s true motives in writing Utah’s “compromise” SB296 law are clear.

LGBTQ supporters of the law are arguing that the religious exemptions in SB296 do not undermine the workplace/housing protections for LGBTQ people. But that misses the entire point of the critique of the bill. It didn’t matter what legalese actually went into the law. In fact, it behooved Wilson, the Mormon Church, ADF, and the other Religious Right actors to make the bill appear favorable to LGBTQ people who desperately need workplace and housing protections.

No, the real agenda was to obtain the endorsement of LGBTQ groups. The Religious Freedom Restoration Acts currently being pushed through state legislatures, particularly in the South, are vulnerable to court challenges. But now that the Religious Right has high-profile endorsements of their false framework of religious freedom and LGBTQ rights being opposed to each other, unfortunately, the ability of LGBTQ activists and organizations to oppose RFRAs and other efforts to codify discrimination—all dressed up in the language of “religious freedom”—has been curtailed.

 

Eric Ethington is a journalist, activist, and researcher. Originally from Utah, he now works in Boston for a social justice think tank. His writing, advocacy work, and research have been featured on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, CNBC, the New York Times, The Guardian, and The Public Eye magazine. Follow him on Twitter @EricEthington.

**Cross-posted with permission from Political Research Associates

[1] Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008.

 

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News

‘Basically Underwater on Everything’: Trump in Big Trouble With Majority of Voters Poll Finds

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March 13, 2025

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Barely more than 50 days into his second term, President Donald Trump appears to be failing in the eyes of a majority of American voters on nearly every major issue — from the economy to immigration to the war in Ukraine to trade to his handling of the federal workforce and more —according to a new poll released Thursday by the highly-respected Quinnipiac University.

“A noticeable uptick of discontent can be seen over President Trump’s handling of a range of issues: from Ukraine to the economy to the federal workforce,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement.

A majority of Americans, 53%, disapprove of the president’s performance overall, with just 42% approving. That’s a significant swing (11 points) on the disapproval side from Quinnipiac’s January 29 poll, which found 46% percent of Americans approved of the new president’s performance, and 42% disapproved.

Fox News host Jessica Tarlov gave an overview of the poll’s results, telling viewers (video below), “So basically, he is underwater on everything.”

READ MORE: ‘Bizarre’: GOP Obsessed With Me Instead of Governing, Says Transgender Congresswoman

On one of the most strongly-negative questions, 60% of voters oppose President Trump’s plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Just one in three support it. Another major negative is Trump’s position on trade with Canada: 58 percent of voters disapprove of his handling of that issue, just 36 percent approve. That is closely followed by trade with Mexico (56% disapprove).

Historically, the economy has been one of Trump’s strongest approval areas. That is no longer the case.

A majority of voters, 54%, disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy — just 41% approve.

“In the Quinnipiac poll released today, 1 percent of voters describe the state of the America’s economy as excellent. That’s not a typo,” observed Democratic strategist Matt McDermott.

On that topic, Quinnipiac reported, a whopping “76 percent describe it as either not so good (45 percent) or poor (31 percent).”

According to Quinnipiac’s numbers, voters thought President J0e Biden’s economy was better in his last full month (December) than they think President Trump’s is now.

Quinnipiac University’s December 2024 poll found 34 percent described the economy “as either excellent (3 percent) or good (31 percent) and 64 percent described it as either not so good (31 percent) or poor (33 percent).”

Immigration, also once a strong area for Trump, no longer is.

Nearly half of voters, 49%, disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration issues. 46% approve.

Other negatives include his handling of the Russia – Ukraine war (55% disapprove), the federal workforce (also 55% disapprove), foreign policy (53% disapprove,) and the military (48% disapprove).

Trump’s Oval Office dressing down of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not go over well with the American voter.

“Fifty-eight percent of voters disapprove of the way President Trump handled the recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, while 35 percent approve.”

Trump’s overall approval rating (42%) is actually one point below what voters gave President Zelenskyy (43%).

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Meanwhile, six in ten voters (61%) think Trump is not hard enough on Russia, while half (50%) think he is too tough on Ukraine.

In fact, the only issue where Trump’s overall favorable outweighed his unfavorable rating is trade with China, which has not made many headlines recently. On that issue, 46% approve, 44% approve, a narrow margin.

But even in areas not directly tied to Trump’s approval rating, voters oppose the President’s position, at least in part.

“More than half of voters (57 percent) think that children who have not received standard vaccinations should not be allowed to attend schools and childcare facilities, while 35 percent think that children who have not received standard vaccinations should be allowed to attend schools and childcare facilities,” Quinnipiac found.

On the President’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), 60% of voters “disapprove of the way Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency,” Quinnipiac found, “are dealing with workers employed by the federal government, while 36 percent approve.”

Republicans (77 – 16 percent) approve, while Democrats (96 – 2 percent) and independents (68 – 28 percent) disapprove.

Fifty-four percent of voters think Elon Musk and DOGE are hurting the country, while 40 percent think they are helping the country.

President Trump has ordered that any school that requires vaccinations for COVID-19 will be defunded.

“TIMBER!” exclaimed SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah, who wrote that the poll shows, “Trump’s approval rating falling as fast as he’s killing stock market.”

“ONLY 42% approve of Trump’s presidency. That is LOWEST EVER for 2nd term President at 50 days,” he noted.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Not Above the Law’: Fist-Pounding Democrat Explodes Asking ‘Where’s Elon Musk?’

 

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‘Bizarre’: GOP Obsessed With Me Instead of Governing, Says Transgender Congresswoman

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11 hours ago

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March 13, 2025

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U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) is calling out House Republicans for their “weird” and “bizarre” fixation on culture war issues—and particularly their obsession with her. As the first openly transgender member of Congress and the highest-ranking transgender elected official in the U.S., McBride is urging Republican lawmakers to focus on governing instead of their divisive rhetoric and tactics.

Congresswoman McBride has been attacked by House Republicans since before she was sworn in to office in January, particularly by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). But now some behavior has become so disruptive it is affecting the ability of Congress to do the people’s work.

On Tuesday, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee chairman, U.S. Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) abruptly ended his own committee’s hearing after being chastised for addressing Congresswoman McBride as “Mr. McBride.” McBride responded by saying, “Thank you, Madam Chair.”

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When U.S. Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) challenged Self for misgendering McBride, the chairman repeated his remarks, leading Keating to angrily criticize him.

“Mr. Chairman, you are out of order,” Congressman Keating declared, as USA Today reported. “Mr. Chairman, have you no decency? I mean, I’ve come to know you a little bit. But this is not decent.”

Chairman Self, reposting a MAGA influencer post, defended his actions by declaring, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.” That “policy” comes from a Trump executive order, which applies to the executive branch but is not law. It is also, as Doctors for America noted, “medically inaccurate and fueled by transphobia.”

In support of Chairman Self, U.S. Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) posted on social media, “Tim ‘Sarah’ McBride is a biological man and always will be.” That post received tremendous outrage.

Thursday morning at a press conference, Rep. McBride slammed House Republicans, while urging them to fulfill the responsibilities they were elected to perform.

“We will not take a lecture on decorum from a party that incited an insurrection,” McBride declared.

NOTUS reports that statement came “after a group of female lawmakers was asked about Republican criticism of Democratic antics during Donald Trump’s recent joint address and the episode on Tuesday involving McBride’s pronouns.”

“I appear to live rent free in the minds of some of my Republican colleagues,” McBride continued.

READ MORE: ‘Not Above the Law’: Fist-Pounding Democrat Explodes Asking ‘Where’s Elon Musk?’

“I wish that they would spend even a fraction of the time that they spend thinking about me thinking about how to lower the costs for American families,” she added. “I wish they would spend a fraction of the time that they spend thinking about me, figuring out how to make government actually work better rather than making it work worse in order to prove that government can’t work.”

“They are obsessed with culture war issues,” McBridge charged. “The Republican party is obsessed with culture war issues. It is weird and it is bizarre, and the American people deserve serious legislators, serious elected officials who are focused on bringing people together to deliver real results for the American people, not to play games and not to engage in school yard taunts.”

NOTUS also reported that “Republicans have repeatedly misgendered McBride since the start of her term. During her maiden floor speech, Republican Rep. Mary Miller — who was presiding over the chamber at the time — introduced McBride as the “gentleman from Delaware.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Egg Prices Have ‘Soared’ — Trump Insists They Have ‘Come Down a Lot’

 

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‘Entire World Ripping Us Off’: Trump Quotes FDR in Angry Tariff War Meltdown

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14 hours ago

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March 13, 2025

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President Donald Trump exploded in a fiery social media rant Thursday morning, defending his tariffs with rhetoric that framed them as weapons in a war—quoting WW II-era President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) to defend his controversial taxes.

Trump’s attack on what he called the “Globalist Wall Street Journal” followed criticism from the Murdoch-owned newspaper’s editor, who argued that Trump’s “haphazard” tariffs were unsettling business leaders and fostering instability.

Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Emma Tucker told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday morning (video below) that less than two months ago, just as Trump was ushering in his second term, the mood of business executives was “upbeat.” She explained that “the talk was all of deregulation, growth, you know, no tax rises — boom, boom America — and Europe was absolutely stuck in the doldrums, very unhappy. But it’s very interesting how that mood has shifted pretty much since all the tariffs started coming in.”

The President went ballistic.

READ MORE: ‘Not Above the Law’: Fist-Pounding Democrat Explodes Asking ‘Where’s Elon Musk?’

“The Globalist Wall Street Journal has no idea what they are doing or saying,” he declared. “They are owned by the polluted thinking of the European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of ‘screwing the United States of America. Their (WSJ!) thinking is antiquated and weak, and very bad for the USA. But have no fear, we will WIN on everything!!! Egg prices are down, oil is down, interest rates are down, and TARIFF RELATED MONEY IS POURING INTO THE UNITED STATES.”

He ended that post by misquoting FDR’s famous remarks, stating: “The only thing you have to fear, is fear itself!”

Minutes later, Trump continued his rant.

“The U.S. doesn’t have Free Trade. We have ‘Stupid Trade.’ The Entire World is RIPPING US OFF!!!”

For years, Trump boasted and bragged about the trade deal he took credit for negotiating, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, or “USMCA,” which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Earlier Thursday morning, Trump had exploded over tariffs the European Union had announced, tariffs that were in response to those Trump had imposed.

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“The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States,” Trump alleged, “has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky. If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES. This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”

(Many were quick to point out that there is no “Champagne business” in the U.S., as champagne legally only comes from France.)

“Tit-for-tat threats gather pace in transatlantic trade feud,” Bloomberg News reported, adding: “Trump is ‘escalating the trade war he chose to unleash,’ Laurent Saint-Martin, France’s trade minister, wrote in a post on X. ‘We will not give in to threats and will always protect our industries.'”

Bloomberg added that Trump’s “sweeping tariff agenda” was being enacted “in a piecemeal fashion, a strategy that has been punctuated by uncertainty, including delays, reversals and changes in direction.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

This is probably the interview that set Trump off on Truth Social this morn — Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Emma Tucker criticizing Trump’s policies on Maria Bartiromo’s show, saying executives are “floundering” because of them, & adding that prices will go up for consumers because of tariffs

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 13, 2025 at 9:12 AM

READ MORE: Egg Prices Have ‘Soared’ — Trump Insists They Have ‘Come Down a Lot’

 

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