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Related: About this forumArizona state secretly funding anti-LGBTQ hate group
Last edited Sat Feb 9, 2019, 02:05 AM - Edit history (1)
The Arizona state government is secretly funding an anti-LGBTQ hate group by selling specialty license plates on their behalf. The In God We Trust plate benefits the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group that files legal challenges to overturn nondiscrimination protections that include sexual orientation and gender identity.
The plate sells for $25. $17 of the cost goes to the hate group. The state has raised over a million dollars for the organization.
Alliance Defending Freedom defended Jack Phillips in the Supreme Court Masterpiece Cakeshop case to defend the anti-gay baker who refused service to a gay couple. Theyre also notorious for filing lawsuits attempting to overturn local and state nondiscrimination laws.
The group has recently filed lawsuits challenging bans on ex-gay conversion therapy and defended a homeless shelters religious freedom to ban transgender people from the facility.
The state is not required to tell the public where the proceeds of the sale is distributed. State senator Juan Mendez has filed legislation that would require the state to create a public list of where the money actually goes.
The list would require the state to list the name and mission statement of each group receiving benefits from the sale of specialty license plates.
The legislation establishing this license plate passed as a floor amendment with no discussion there was no public awareness of what was happening or where the money was going, says Tory Roberg, the director of government affairs for the Secular Coalition for Arizona.
People who choose the In God We Trust plate never know that theyre sending money to ADF. Its not on the ServiceArizona website, its not in the statute establishing the plate, its nowhere.
Mendez has also filed a bill to repeal the sale of the license plate altogether.
What do people not understand about the inappropriateness of this kind of fundamentalist inspired, state-sanctioned discrimination? says David Felten, a pastor at Fountain Hill United Methodist Church, told the local media.
This is not just an abstract violation of church-state separation. Its a very real rejection of Arizonas LGBTQ people by the very government that is supposed to impartially support and protect all of its citizens.
Article copy/pasted from lgbtqnation site.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/02/arizona-state-government-secretly-funding-anti-lgbtq-hate-group/
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Arizona state secretly funding anti-LGBTQ hate group (Original Post)
lambchopp59
Feb 2019
OP
Thank You, I'm still learning my chromebook functions. Probably did something wrong.
lambchopp59
Feb 2019
#4
RKP5637
(67,084 posts)1. Hate filled religious freaks and politicians again!!! n/t
mbusby
(822 posts)2. Link is bad...
lambchopp59
(2,809 posts)4. Thank You, I'm still learning my chromebook functions. Probably did something wrong.
Desert grandma
(803 posts)3. What happened to separation of church and state here?
ACLU or other like organization should get involved. Sneaky Republicans. Glad someone discovered this. It should not surprise anyone that these evangelical right wing groups continue to think they will not get caught with their schemes. This is arrogant and deceitful.
shenmue
(38,506 posts)5. Holy fuck