Press articles/opinions I have seen are 14 against and 4 for House Bill 1523.

People who emotionally argue one way or another seldom know their history. Provocation is a terrible thing. Trash one’s religious beliefs long enough and they will react.  The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 to protect citizens from their state’s attempts to deprive them of their rights under the Bill of Rights. Two clauses are at the core of what is happening today: “due process” and “equal protection” clauses.  Nowhere do they mention civil rights, marriage or LGBTs.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act cemented “discrimination” into our legal system. You can’t discriminate against people due to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin; “sexual orientation” is not mentioned. Blacks were “free at last” but the nation got an ACLU whose self-righteous mission is to sue anyone who violates its definition of discrimination. Until 1973, SCOTUS limited itself to law and equity cases, but both the Constitution and laws arising from it are written by humans. SCOTUS crossed its Rubicon in 1973 with Roe versus Wade when they self-ordained themselves to rule on moral laws which come only from God. 

Now Planned Parenthood views fetuses as inhuman squirming masses of worthless trash in the name of “women’s health.”

LGBTs have been in the military since we‘ve had one. The UMCJ treats them the same as others. Clinton tried to force LGBTs on the military but settled for DADT and signed DOMA.

In 2013, DOMA’s Section 3 was repealed by Obama and SCOTUS. God’s marriage is no longer between a man and woman, so says five justices who ruled gay marriage legal in 2015. Just last week SCOTUS refused to hear a lower court appeal which now affirms a born-female transgender’s right to sue a high school for not allowing “him” access to the boy’s bathroom.  Obama and DOJ will deny federal funds to states that don’t comply. 

Why not require all businesses and schools to install seven bathrooms: one for each of the four LGBTs, one for “real men,” one for “real women,” and one to cover a variant of “sexual preference” we haven’t discovered yet?

I have never known an uneducated, unemployed, poor, destitute LGBT. I have known hundreds of uneducated, unemployed, poor and destitute blacks. Blacks can’t “hide” their skin color. Christians are under attack in their own homeland. Some are taking sides against each other. How long will “Under God” remain in our Pledge of Allegiance?

I earned my Eagle Badge at Camp Yocona in 1953. In 2014 I took my name off the roles when the National BSA decided troops must admit openly gay boys and in 2015 allow gay adult troop leaders. How can they take the Scout oath to be “Morally Straight?” My God says that lifestyle is an “abomination” against HIS law — not man’s. Your right to practice the “…free exercise thereof” your religion is no longer protected by our Constitution.

HB1523 will be overturned. The ACLU can’t wait to litigate. HB1523 never should have happened but after decades of relentless provocation, Christians have a choice: sit back and “love,” or act in honor of their God. Judge Bork was right. We are “Slouching towards Gomorrah;” perhaps we are already there. Thanks, Gov. Bryant for your courage. Keep it up.

Harley Garrett

Oxford