Discrimination Under the Banner of Faith: Analyzing Project 2025’s Impact on LGBTQ+ Rights and Religious Freedom

[0:01] This is Glass City Humanist, a show about humanism, humanist values, by a humanist. Here is your host, Douglas Berger. In this episode, we take a closer look at the religious aspects of Project 2025 and how it clearly fleshes out which option hurts people and the option that doesn’t hurt people based on our shared humanist values. Glass City Humanist is an outreach project of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, building community through compassion and reason for a better tomorrow.

[0:35] Music.

[0:59] Back in July, I did an episode where I talked about the dangers of Project 2025. That is the mandate for leadership. It’s the book written by the Heritage Foundation, and many far-right and religious conservative groups contributed to it. And basically, it’s a roadmap for the next conservative presidential administration on how to remake government.

[1:34] To better serve the conservative viewpoint.

[1:40] And I know back in July I talked about some of the anti-LGBT rules and regulations that they want to impose and talk about that. But what I wanted to do today is I wanted to focus on the religious conservative aspect of Project 2025. Twenty five. It it doesn’t spend a lot of time specifically about religion. It includes religion as part of the how they say doing a religious freedom, you know, trying to support religious freedom for everyone. That’s not what they’re talking about. They’re talking about private companies who are run by people that have sincere religious beliefs, and they want to allow them to discriminate in employment against their workers and how they operate their companies outside of any current government regulations.

[2:48] Just as a reminder, if you have a commercial business, and in general, if you have a commercial business where it’s open to the public, even if you have sincerely held religious beliefs, you still are not allowed to discriminate against people for their race, national origin, religion, sex. You know, they call it business accommodation.

[3:14] And the reason why, and this is as part of the Civil Rights Act that was passed in the 60s, part of that was because you had a lot of private businesses, particularly in hospitality, like hotels and restaurants, that had signs up that said colored people were not allowed. And so they discriminate against black people. They wouldn’t allow them into or to sit at a restaurant, at certain restaurants, sometimes in the South, but there was scattered ones throughout the country where people could do that. And earlier they used to have signs up in like New York City, signs that said Irish need not apply because the business owners discriminated against Irish immigrants. And so you see that, you know, and that’s why this particular business accommodation ruling was put into law.

[4:14] Because I doubt very much if there’s anybody really that could say, yes, I think that businesses should be able to discriminate against people for their religion or their race or, you know. I mean, and the only people that actually think that way are conservatives, because they have this false notion of the free market.

[4:42] The free market does not exist. That is an aspirational thing for religious and economic conservatives, that the market will decide. If some company is being really nasty to people, then people will stop partaking in that company. Now, I do want to say, though, is a lot of these religious and economic conservatives are against boycotts, unless it’s about issues that they are concerned about. So, yeah, there’s just a lot of hypocrisy. Trust me. There’s just conservatives, religious and economic conservatives, there’s a lot of hypocrisy. Like, you know, they think that businesses should be bailed out if they get into trouble, but they don’t think that individuals should get bailed out if they get into trouble. You know what I’m saying? They move businesses above everybody else. And we know that that’s not right. That’s not a humanist value. Now, what I wanted to do, though, is I wanted to look at, and they have this Project 2025.

[5:52] Somebody had posted it, and I have a link. And if you listen to the July episode, if you go to the July show notes, it’s a link. I’m just going to copy it over. But somebody had posted the entire 900-page book online, and you can do word searches. So that’s what I did. I went to this PDF, and I put in religion and looked at all the places that religion came up. And a lot of it was more about the discrimination, allowing businesses to discriminate. But here’s a couple of interesting ones that I wanted to point out. They have a section on here on page 621 of the PDF. I think it might be page 600 or something, around that part in the book. It says, Sabbath Rest.

[6:45] God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest, and until very recently, the Judeo-Christian tradition sought to honor that mandate by moral and legal regulation of work on that day. Moreover, a shared day off makes it possible for families and communities to enjoy time off together rather than as autonomized individuals and provides a healthier cadence of life for everyone. Unfortunately, that communal day of rest has eroded under the pressures of consumerism and secularism, especially for low-income workers.

[7:21] Congress should encourage communal rest by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, F.L.S.A., to require that workers be paid time and a half for hours worked on the Sabbath. That day would default to Sunday, except for employers with a sincere religious observance of a Sabbath at a different time. Example, Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. the obligation would transfer to that period instead. Houses of worship, to the limited extent that they may have FLSA-covered employees, and employers legally required to operate around the clock, such as hospitals and first responders, would be exempt, as would workers otherwise exempt from overtime. time. So, back in the before, I think it’s before World War II, even earlier than that, maybe beginning of the 20th century, there used to be blue law, what they call blue laws. And the blue laws was that you couldn’t operate certain businesses on Sunday. You had to be closed. And the reason why you had to be closed was because the government forced people to have a day of rest, and it was typically on a Sunday.

[8:46] And basically that was to protect the churches. That’s what the original thrust of these blue laws were. There’s still some vestiges of blue laws, particularly with the regards to sale of alcohol in some jurisdictions, such as here in Ohio, you have to have a special permit and you still can’t sell alcohol until after one o’clock because they don’t want people being drunk in church.

[9:18] My mom’s 80 years old and she was telling me the other day that they used to have, because she used to be a frequent churchgoer back in her younger days. And she remembers going to church on a Sunday morning, and a lot of the men in her community would come into church a little bit late, a little disheveled, reeking of alcohol. And what it was is they would tide one on the night before, be hungover or maybe even still drunk, and they would comb their hair and throw on a clean, some clean clothes and go to church. And she said the smell of alcohol was just horrendous on a Sunday morning. So that’s why a lot of these blue laws prohibited the sale of alcohol because they didn’t want people drinking. They wanted them in church.

[10:17] Now, most progressive people, like myself, see that that’s wrong. The government should not dictate whether or not you go to church. If you want to work on a Sunday, you should be allowed to work on a Sunday. Now, of course, finding customers on a Sunday, that’s not up to the government either. So, you know, these protections for these churches, it’s wrong. Now, a lot of these blue laws aren’t written exactly like that because they’re worried about First Amendment, even though a lot of the blue laws were found to be constitutional because they serve a secular purpose, giving people a day of rest that just so happens to fall on Sunday. Day, but that’s usually the accommodation and special privileging for religion that they get all the time, where people pull it out of their behinds to find a secular purpose to protect a religious observance or religious thing. We saw that with the Ten Commandments monument on the lawn of the Lucas County Courthouse. The ACLU went to court, and even though that stone monument was a movie prop used to promote the Ten Commandments movie in the 1950s. The court found that it had religious historical meaning for everybody. It was like a generic thing.

[11:43] And I know I’ve talked about treating religion as generic for quite some time, that they only seem to do that in court cases. And the Christians and other religious people have no problems with it because it accommodates their beliefs in the public square. So, of course, they don’t care. But they do care if a private entity or a public entity tries to keep them out. Then they get upset.

[12:14] So I just wanted to read, you know, that Project 2025 wants to reinstitute Sabbath laws or blue laws overall to protect the church. And one way that they want to do that is to make it more expensive for businesses to run on the Sabbath by forcing businesses to pay workers time and a half, which is the standard overtime pay, to work on the Sabbath. Unless, of course, you are required to work 24 hours a day like first responders and hospital workers, or if your job is exempt from overtime to begin with, then you don’t get that extra pay. All right, and then another part that I want to point out is in regards to labor law. And on page 627 of the searchable PDF notes, it says, It says, Congress should expand apprenticeship programs outside of the RAP model, recreating the IRAP system of statute and allowing approved entities, such as trade associations and educational institutions, to recognize and oversee apprenticeship programs.

[13:30] In addition, religious organizations should be encouraged to participate in apprenticeship programs. America has a long history of religious organizations working to advance the dignity of workers and provide them with greater opportunity, from the many prominent Christian and Jewish voices in the early labor movement.

[13:51] To the labor priests who would appear on picket lines to support their flocks. See, they only care about the labor movement if it’s related to religion. Today, the role of religion in helping workers has diminished, but a country committed to strengthening civil society must ask more from religious organizations and make sure that their important role is not impeded by regulatory roadblocks or the bureaucratic status quo. Encourage and enable religious organizations to participate in apprenticeship programs, etc. Both the Department of Labor and NLRB should facilitate religious organizations. Helping to strengthen working families via apprenticeship programs, worker organizations, vocational training, benefit networks, etc. So basically what this means is allowing religious organizations to have apprenticeship programs. Now, I don’t…

[14:48] To me, I don’t automatically oppose that idea, but I can see that it would be tweaked or somewhere where it would benefit the religious organization more than the worker. You know, because usually what this means is that some private entity is going to use labor from these apprenticeship programs, and that’s money that’s going to go to a church or something like that, and less money to go to the worker. Or like, I don’t want to see them doing work for free, put it that way. So it would just, it would just be something I would need to take a look at how it would be implemented. I’m hoping it doesn’t get implemented, but it just seems kind of, it doesn’t pass the smell test with me. For more information about the topics in this episode, including links used, please visit the episode page at glasscityhumanist.show.

[15:52] Another thing that i wanted to talk about with project 2025 is when it comes to um we’re going to go back to the lgbt stuff here especially about the trans transgender people and they’ve got a section in here called uh protect parental rights and policy and so they have this you know Conservatives, religious and religious conservatives, have this big thing about parental rights. Because they think that kids are being indoctrinated into Marxism or socialism or whatever stuff. Or they’re being encouraged to transition from female to male or male to female. They think that they’re getting it at school. And also, they believe that parents should be able to decide what subjects their kids learn and what books that their kids learn instead of leaving that to the education experts.

[16:59] And so, of course, they have this big, big thing, big block of stuff about new policy priorities for 2025 and beyond. And it’s about new legislation that should be prioritized. The first thing out of the block, it says Congress should rescind the National Education Association’s congressional charter and remove the false impression that federal taxpayers support the political activities of this special interest group.

[17:25] This move would not be unprecedented as Congress has rescinded the federal charters of other organizations over the past century. The NEA is a demonstrably radical special interest group that overwhelmingly supports left-of-center policy and policymakers. Then they have a section here, parental rights and education and safeguarding students. Federal officials should protect educators and students in jurisdictions under federal control from racial discrimination by reinforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prohibiting compelled speech. Now, this is one thing that I like to point out when I talk to people about this. You know, this is a new playbook, a new conservative play, new-ish. I mean, they’ve been doing it for several years, but basically what they’ve done or what they want to do is turn anti-discrimination law on its ear.

[18:22] And have it apply to the groups that it was meant to be used against because they were the ones that were marginalizing other people and flexing their muscle about being in charge. It’s like what I was telling you about the business accommodation where they want to let businesses discriminate against people people, irregardless of having a non-discrimination law, they want to do the same where it comes to education. And so basically what they’re trying to say is that if you have a law or regulation that.

[19:13] Is there to protect a minority or a marginalized group, such as black people or LGBT people, that that discriminates against the majority people, the whites and the heterosexuals. And so the conservatives are saying that that is wrong. And and i i don’t know why it’s hard to explain to conservative people that that’s not how it works, you know because you are not if you are white heterosexual cisgendered whether or not.

[19:57] A kid is being called a particular pronoun doesn’t do anything to you. It doesn’t affect your way of life, but it helps the person that they want their pronouns to be correct. And I just never understood that take, that conservative take, that they believe the government should not force them to use proper pronouns for trans kids. That that somehow violates your First Amendment rights. You know, that’s like, when you’re invoking your civil rights, that’s a monumental issue that you’re invoking it. For example, prayer in the school.

[20:54] People invoke their civil rights that they should not be forced to pray in school. And courts agreed. agreed, that does not discriminate against the people that had no problem with it. Why is that? Because it didn’t stop them from praying in school. All the court decisions about prayer in the school, all it did was say that the school cannot compel a student to pray. All right? So you can’t have a teacher say, okay, kids, we’re going to take a few minutes here and pray to God. And then have this teacher go, almighty God, da, da, da, da, you know. That is what was prohibited. The Bible reading was also prohibited. So a teacher can’t say, kids, take out your Bibles and turn to Luke 3.16 or whatever, and let’s read that. That’s what those court cases, and that’s what civil rights law did, is it got, that was the state, the government, compelling kids to pray and to read the Bible. And so it got rid of that.

[22:13] But it did not say that kids could not pray or read the Bible. It just meant that the school can’t compel you to do it. Same with the Pledge of Allegiance. And this was a court case that was brought by some Jehovah Witnesses that don’t subscribe to pledges to anyone other than to God. So that’s why they were against kids being compelled to say the Pledge of Allegiance. And so the court said, you know, you’re right. The school cannot compel your child to say the Pledge of Allegiance if they don’t want to. So that’s what these civil rights laws, but the Project 2025 takes it and turns it on its head. So, like I said, they want to reinforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prohibit compelled speech. Specifically, and this is what the project says, Specifically, no teacher or student in Washington, D.C., public schools, Bureau of Indian Education schools, or Department of Defense schools should be compelled to believe, profess, or adhere to any idea, but especially ideas that violate state or federal civil rights laws. Sounds good, right? It means that little Johnny can’t use the N-word.

[23:38] But that’s not what they’re talking about. It says, by its very design, critical race theory has an applied dimension, as its founders state in their essays that define the theory. Those who subscribe to the theory believe that racism, in this case treating individuals differently based on race, is appropriate, necessary even.

[24:01] Making the theory more than merely an analytical tool to describe race in public and private life. The theory disrupts America’s founding ideals of freedom and opportunity, so when critical race theory is used as part of school activities such as mandatory affinity groups, teacher training programs in which educators are required to confess their privilege, or school assignments in which students must defend the false idea that America is systemically racist, the theory is actively disrupting the values that hold communities together such as equality under the law and colorblindness. There’s just so much to unpack in that. Oh my gosh. My common conception is that religious and political conservatives have no idea how CRT works. They don’t know anything about it. And this is just conservative claptrap through and through, okay? Okay, first of all, it says those who subscribe to the theory believe that racism, in this case, treating individuals differently based on race, is appropriate, necessary, even making the theory more than merely analytical. Well, first of all, racism is treating individuals differently based on race. Okay, so by them phrasing it that way, they’re applying it to white people.

[25:31] And I’m telling you that you cannot be racist towards white people.

[25:38] You know, when we’re talking about racism, when we’re talking about systemic racism, what we’re talking about, what other progressive people are talking about, and how it’s commonly referred to in academia, is that the institutions of society, the government, you know, businesses, schools, parks, everything, the whole thing that makes up a community, they’re being racist when they treat people differently because of race. And that has been predominantly historically based on people who were not white, people who were not Christian, people who were not men were discriminated against. And so the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was put in place to protect minorities, to protect women, to protect non-Christians. And non-believers and all those people that have been marginalized and hurt.

[26:58] And there still is systemic racism. Project 2025, if you read it, it’s just one systemic racist activity after another.

[27:12] So, of course, then they go on and they say that there should be a law against the theory and that they should adopt proposals that say no individual should receive punishment or benefits based on the color of their skin. That’s that colorblindness thing that doesn’t really exist in reality. Furthermore, school officials should not require students or teachers to believe that individuals are guilty or responsible for the actions of others based on race or ethnicity. But, you know, what I would like to see is a law or a rule where white people are compelled to acknowledge that the Confederates were the losers in the Civil War and that they supported slavery.

[27:59] And that honoring them with statues and paintings is wrong.

[28:05] And naming your school after Confederates is wrong. And that goes against the foundation elements of this country. Then it says, educators should not be forced to discuss contemporary political issues, but neither should they refrain from discussing certain subjects in an attempt to protect students from ideas with which they disagree. Proposals such as this should result in robust classroom discussions, not censorship, at the state level. No, but they want censorship. Critical race theory, if it is discussed, which isn’t in the public schools, it’s a college-level course. But the issue surrounding systemic racism that Columbus, the explorer Columbus, how he murdered a lot of Native Americans when he supposedly discovered America. America, you know, teaching the truth about history, they don’t want you to teach the truth about history. They want you to whitewash it and make it like it’s something that you would see in the 1950s with, we can do no wrong. We’re America. You know, that to me is censorship. And having a law saying you can’t talk about the real history of America is censorship.

[29:34] Hello, this is Douglas, host of The Glass City Humanist, inviting you to listen to selected segments of The Glass City Humanist on Toledo Community Radio Station WAKT, 106.1 FM, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. If you can’t listen to us on the radio, you can live stream us on toledoradio.org or visit our OnWAKT page on our website, glasscityhumanist.show, for past episodes.

[30:07] Music.

[30:16] So then they go into the part about advancing legal protections for parental rights and education. It says, work to pass a federal parent’s bill of rights that restores parental rights to a top-tier right. Such legislation would give families a fair hearing in court when the federal government enforces any policy against parents in a way that undermines their right and responsibility to raise, educate, and care for their children. The law would require the government to satisfy strict scrutiny. Further, ensure that any regulations that could impact parental rights contain similar protections and require federal agencies to demonstrate that their action meets strict scrutiny.

[30:57] And so what that is, is that leads us to the transgender stuff, the gender identity stuff. So then it says protect parental rights and policy. It says, As documented by writers such as Abigail Shire and others, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons documented a four-fold increase in the number of biological girls seeking gender surgery between 2016 and 2017. Larger increases were found in the UK from 2009, 2019, and 2017 to 2018. These statistics and others point to a social contagion in which minor children, especially girls, are attempting to make life-altering decisions using puberty blockers and other hormone treatments and even surgeries to remove or alter vital body parts. Heritage Foundation research finds that providing easier access to such treatments and surgeries without parental involvement does not reduce the suicidality of these young people and may even increase suicide rates. That’s wrong. That’s factually wrong. The other studies have not shown that. I wouldn’t believe a study from the Heritage Foundation, to tell you the truth.

[32:14] And it says the next administration should take political particular note of how radical gender ideology is having a devastating effect on school age children today, especially young girl. OK, so this dovetails into a couple of conservative notions here. The first one is that minor children are being coerced into using puberty blockers and other hormone treatments and even surgeries to transition. That’s not the case. That’s false. There is a methodology for people that want to believe that they’re transgender. There’s certain steps that you have to go through. you have to talk to a psychologist you have to be examined by medical doctors, most of the time it starts with social transition where you choose a new name or you want to be referred if you were born biologically a girl and you want to be known as a he or him, in some cases mostly they or them.

[33:24] And then later on as you grow older and you still are wanting to transition, then they start with medical treatments. And then it culminates with surgeries, if that is something that you still want to do, usually when you’re above the age of 18, and to make those decisions yourself. Now, the other part that this dovetails into is this notion, this conservative notion, that that young girls need protection, 100% need protection, and they need government protection because they’re in danger for some reason, whatever reason that is, whatever reason that they make up. They don’t care about boys. See, that’s that misogyny creeping in, that they only believe that women and girls have no control and they’re in danger and they need protection constantly. But what they don’t know is that the women and girls, they need protection from predators, male predators who want to do them harm, but not from gender identity issues.

[34:38] And so, you know, once again, the conservatives don’t know how it works. They just don’t know how gender identity works in the real world. Now we’re talking the real world. So they use a lot of these. And like I said, a lot of these conservative groups helped write this book. So who knows where this came from? But this is the one Reverend Gary Click in Fremont, who’s a state representative. This sounds like something that he would write. And he’s the one that sponsored the ban on gender-affirming care in Ohio. Because he doesn’t know how it works, and he hates transgender people. Really hates. I mean, he said some nasty things on Twitter about transgender people. And he’s a state legislator. So, there you go. And he claims to be a Christian. So, there you go.

[35:36] So anyway, the other part that I want to highlight here is that, under the transgender part, is they have them bold in these bullet points. It says, no public education employee or contractor shall use a name to, now they want this enshrined in a law, no public education employee or contractor shall use a name to address a student other than the name listed on a student’s birth certificate without the written permission of students, parents, or guardians. No public education employee or contractor shall use a pronoun in addressing a student that is different from the student’s biological sex without a written permission of a student’s parents or guardian. And no public institution may require an education employee or contractor to use a pronoun that does not match a person’s biological sex, contrary to the employee or contractor’s religious or moral convictions.

[36:32] So, again, like I said earlier, this is part of the conservative mindset that I just don’t understand. Because I’m not built that way. My stated goal when I’m interacting with other people is not to hurt people. I don’t want to do that. My values say that I am not to hurt other people needlessly, put it that way, or intentionally hurt other people. If I accidentally hurt people, that’s something I need to deal with. But I just never have understood this precollection from religious conservatives.

[37:16] About using proper person’s pronouns or using the name that they want to go by. I just don’t understand that. I don’t understand why you would not want to do that. And yes, there’s actually some atheists that are like that, too, like Richard Dawkins. You know, he’s very anti—he’s a transphobe. And then there’s some other people, some other atheists that I know are heard of that are rather politically conservative that are also against—that are also transphobes. And so that’s why I’m saying it’s more of a conservative thing. You know, I just don’t get it. You know, for example, you know, and this has been used in social media that, you know, you meet somebody and his name’s William, but he wants you to call him Bill.

[38:09] You call him Bill. If he wants you to call him Bill, you call him Bill. That’s just a nice thing to do. But, you know, if you have a kid in your class and his given name is William, what this tells me is I would have to get permission from his parents to call him Billy. That’s what it’s saying? Or how about married women that don’t want to, that take their husband’s name? You know, Mrs. McGillicuddy gets married, and becomes Mrs. Smith. You know, well, my religious and moral convictions say that I don’t recognize your married name, so I’m just going to keep calling you Miss McGillicuddy.

[39:03] That is outrageous. It’s just outrageous and hurtful. And why do you want to do that? Because it’s not going to solve anything. It’s not going to prevent these kids from feeling not themselves. Basically, this is just the modus operandi of conservatives is that they want to punish you for having not only ideas, but wanting to interact in your community how you see fit, how you feel you fit in. They want to punish you for that. Because you aren’t heterosexual, you aren’t Christian, you aren’t conservative. So they want to punish you for doing that. And then they come back and they say, well, the left wants to punish you. No, it’s always the conservatives that want to punish you. Progressives and the left, they don’t.

[40:08] And so, while I cannot tell you who to vote for in November, all I can tell you is, based on humanist values, I would rather vote for somebody that’s not going to hurt other people. As I tell people quite often, I’m a white, cisgendered man. I’m good, no matter who I vote for. And so I always make sure I vote on how it’s going to affect my friends and loved ones. And I think that’s a good way of humanists to decide these things. If you only have the two options, and that’s a whole other story that we’re not going to get into today. If you have two options, you have one option where they want to help as many people as possible. And you have another option where they want to punish you or your friends and loved ones because of who they are.

[41:09] I think the decision is quite clear which option I’m going to pick and what option I suggest that you should pick. But in the meantime, make sure that you stay informed. Keep up on this Project 2025 because it’s not going away. Check out the links. Decide for yourself. You know, I’ve talked this whole time about some of these points that bothered me, but, you know, check it out for yourself. And there’s also, I’ll have some links to some websites that kind of gestate this into a smaller morsel so you don’t have to read the whole thing. It’s a 900-page book, and I just think it’s just going to hurt too many people, and we don’t need it. We don’t need it in this country. We need positive government, not negative government. Thank you for listening.

[42:07] For more information about the topics in this episode, please visit the episode page at glasscityhumanist.show. Glass City Humanist is an outreach of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. Choli can be reached at humanistswle.org. Glass City Humanist is hosted, written, and produced by Douglas Berger, and he’s solely responsible for the content. Our theme music is Glass City Jam, composed using the Amplify Studio. See you next time!

[42:47] Music.