Southern Baptist Leader Condemns Lesbian Rabbi on U.S. “Religious Freedom” Group

When the Supreme Court shifted to a conservative super-majority, it was a reminder that elections have consequences.

When the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed, it was a reminder that elections have consequences.

That’s a phrase you say when something really good or really bad happens as a direct consequence of who wins the race. But for Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., the Southern Baptist Convention leader who once wrote in the Washington Post that conservative Christians should not vote for Trump because they could not “allow a national disgrace to become the Great Evangelical Embarrassment” only to go all in on Trumpism for the 2020 race, there’s nothing so awful that occurred because Joe Biden won the election.

Which means he needs to make something up.

So what’s an example of the biggest problem he can conjure up? Well, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum was recently appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and she’s lesbian, and… that’s it. That’s all he’s got. The sky has fallen.

… we are so often reminded that elections have consequences as true in terms of every election, but most importantly, in the United States, the election of the president of the United States. The election of Joe Biden as president of the United States has come with consequences. One of those consequences was documented just in recent days.

…

Given her well-documented activism and her position on these issues, it’s very unlikely that this rabbi would support religious liberty when it comes to something like the threat of the Equality Act inside the United States, much less around the world, where the United States under the state department of the Biden administration is putting pressure on nations all over the world to adopt the basic understanding of the LGBTQ revolution.

As we have said, elections have consequences. Here we see a very specific consequence of the 2020 Presidential Election…

Imagine living in such a bigoted conservative bubble that one of the worst consequences of your guy not winning an election is that a progressive religious leader was appointed to a commission that’s mostly symbolic anyway… and a commission on which she already served for a year. Mohler acts like her appointment is a problem now even though she’s been in the same role in the past!

Because Trump won in 2016, our entire democracy is at risk. We’re uncovering new examples of his corruption almost every day. Legal immigration was curtailed, protection against discrimination evaporated in certain areas, Republicans were able to block just about all pieces of meaningful legislation championed by Democrats.

But Mohler’s nightmare is apparently a lesbian joining a group of eight people that currently includes right-wing hate-preacher Tony Perkins even though he didn’t care in the past when she held the same title. Mohler can’t even name a single, actual problem that will arise because of Kleinbaum’s appointment. He just knows he’s angry about it. Because that’s how Christian bigots operate. The closest he comes to highlighting the “greatest challenge to religious liberty” is Kleinbaum’s advocacy of the Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ people in areas like employment, housing, and education. He wants to discriminate so badly he can’t even stand it.

No wonder so many people are ditching the Southern Baptists these days.