Yesterday afternoon, Rep. Bruce Skaug and Sen. Ben Toews introduced H517 in House Judiciary & Rules. This bill would create a cause of action for citizens whose rights to free speech and the free exercise of their religion have been infringed by government entities in Idaho. Yet all four people who testified against the bill in the Capitol today were convinced that Skaug and Toews were laying the groundwork for discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.
The first man to testify began by saying the real target of the law was gay people, before being cautioned by the chair against impugning motives. He went on to say that he realized that the purpose of the bill was to send Christians into schools and libraries, scouring the shelves for anything they didn’t like and forcing them into bankruptcy with lawsuits.
Read the bill text and see if you can figure out where he got that idea.
The next testifier said she feared the bill would promote discrimination of her LGBTQ+ child at school. After that, the Unitarian reverend who is always outspoken on LGBTQ+ issues said she worried this bill would allow Christians in government to refuse service to LGBTQ+ people.
Finally, the representative of the American Civil Liberties Union said this bill was really about using religious beliefs as an excuse for discrimination.
Kate Hartley of the Pacific Justice Institute was the only person to speak in favor of the bill, and the only person who seemed to understand the purpose of it. Rep. Skaug explained in his opening that the bill came about in response to the unjust persecution of Travis Lohr. As you will surely recall, Lohr was supposed to graduate from Kellogg High School last year, only to be barred from the ceremony due to saying that “guys are guys, girls are girls, and there is no in-between.” A school bus driver who attended a rally in support of Lohr the next day was summarily fired by the district, even though he was on his own time.
I wonder if the first four testifiers are satisfied with a system that punishes those who dares speak against LGBTQ+ ideas. Americans have long held that freedom of speech was a paramount issue, and that even those we disagree with have the right to say what they believe. The Free Speech Movement of the 1960s was based on the idea that young leftists had just as much of a right to speak their mind as older conservatives, and eventually conservatives came to agree. After all, free speech is a universal human right, and government shouldn’t be partial in applying the law, right?
The truth is that societies will always have blasphemy laws, they will always have certain ideas that are sacrosanct. In 16th century Spain, it was the reality of God. In 21st century America, it is the supremacy of the minority, including the LGBTQ+ community.
If you think I’m exaggerating, take a look at this story from Florida. A 19-year-old driver is facing felony charges for doing burnouts on a gay pride rainbow crosswalk. Sure, doing burnouts on a public street should not be tolerated, but the reason it’s a felony is because the young man desecrated a sacred symbol.
The LGBTQ+ identity is celebrated year round, in addition to an entire month set aside for it. Trillion-dollar corporations display pride flags in support, with the White House placing that flag in a position of honor, of supremacy over the American flag. Yet militant LGBTQ+ activists are concerned that somewhere, someone might not fully support their lifestyles, and so they look for oppressors to destroy.
Last year, a school board member in California was fired after calling Harvey Milk a pedophile. Gov. Gavin Newsom was so offended that he personally intervened. The fact that Milk, the first openly gay man elected to office in California, had an underage boyfriend, doesn’t matter. He was gay, and therefore sacrosanct.
Consider the state of race relations in America. It’s considered impolite at best, and possibly even criminal, to bring up the fact that George Floyd most likely died of a fentanyl overdose. Because this career criminal, who once held a gun to a pregnant woman’s stomach, happened to die in the custody of a white police officer, he has been elevated to the level of American hero. His face was painted on murals from Minneapolis to Kabul, and numerous statues were cast.
At the same time, statues of the old heroes of America have been systematically torn down, not just those of Confederate generals like Robert E. Lee, but of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Teddy Roosevelt as well. The New America is replacing Old America, and it’s happening quickly.
Consider these two images. The one on the left is considered normal academic discourse, analyzed by very serious and credentialed people, while the image on the right is denounced by media as hate speech and is often investigated by police as a hate crime:
Hate speech laws are blasphemy laws, whether you’re in Inquisition-era Spain or 21st century America. There are certain things you simply are not allowed to say in polite society, and you can expect to be fired, deplatformed, or even prosecuted if you do. Many public figures claim to be in favor of free speech until someone says something critical or derogatory about their own identities.
Case in point: Douglas Murray is the director of the British Free Speech Union. He has gained a reputation for boldly speaking out against mass migration and the death of Western culture. Nevertheless, this week he announced that he would be leading an initiative to bring harsh penalties to those accused of hate speech in England, including public lists akin to sex offender registries.
Murray is a Jewish homosexual, and has decided that protecting the sanctity of those identities trumps any universal value of freedom of speech.
That is exactly what happened in Kellogg last year. Travis Lohr said that guys are guys and girls are girls, and the school’s lesbian art teacher was so offended she demanded he be punished.
This incident prompted Sen. Toews to draft a bill protecting Idahoans’ right to free speech, which he presented in committee yesterday. Yet rather than supporting a bill that would protect their own rights to freedom of speech and free exercise of religion, members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community condemned it, assuming it was going to be used to discriminate against them.
In this inverted world, Lohr’s statement is hateful discrimination on its face, while the sanctions against him and bus driver Dakota Mailloux were justice. Were these testifiers worried that H517 would help such blasphemous scofflaws escape justice in the future? We either have free speech or we don’t, there is no in between. The primary purpose of government is to protect our rights, and so holding them accountable when they infringe upon them is a good start.
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About Brian Almon
Brian Almon is the Editor of the Gem State Chronicle. He also serves as Chairman of the District 14 Republican Party and is a trustee of the Eagle Public Library Board. He lives with his wife and five children in Eagle.
