Bad Faith: Why the Christian Right’s Homophobia Is Indefensible
As soon as the US Supreme Court decided that denying gay people the right to marry constitutes a “deprivation of liberty” in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, all the major Republican presidential candidates urged fierce resistance against the Court’s “judicial tyranny.” Indeed, Obergefell v. Hodges was a major blow to the Christian right—those devout Christians who have consistently opposed not only gay rights but also climate science, evolution, reproductive freedom, stem-cell research, and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Two months have passed since Obergefell was decided, and the Christian right are right back at it. Most of the Republican candidates, especially Mike Huckabee, are applauding Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk, for stubbornly refusing to comply with the ruling on the basis of her Christian beliefs. But what the Christian right fails to realize is that the biblical basis of Davis’s supposed conscientious objection is completely bogus. While conservative Christians certainly enjoy the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion, this constitutional protection does not mean that their understanding of Christianity has any substantive merit. On the contrary, when examined closely, it simply collapses. […]