A new report from the advocacy group American Atheists lays out yet another way in which America is rapidly becoming a nation of haves and have nots: the residents of blue states who have rights, and the residents of red states where Republican lawmakers, propelled by a right-wing Supreme Court and Christian nationalist interest groups, are taking a sledgehammer to those rights.
In its sixth annual “State of the Secular States,” the group reports that in 2023, its staff tracked over 1,000 bills in state legislatures that sought to undermine equal rights based on religion, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, or otherwise undermined religious equality. That number was double the total in 2022 (the previous high). Of those, 162 became law, including bans on abortion and gender-affirming care, restrictions on trans kids’ freedom to use their pronouns and bathrooms at school, book and drag show bans, curriculum control, and more.
Many of the legislators behind these bills, reports the group, were “emboldened and enabled by astroturfed activists.”
Many of the legislators behind these bills, the group reports, were “emboldened and enabled by astroturfed activists.” These activists pose as grassroots campaigners, when in fact they are backed by right-wing organizations bent on restricting Americans’ freedom to read, teach, learn, obtain medical care and even exist. Using buzzwords and phrases like “gender ideology” or “grooming,” and turning critical race theory and diversity, equality and inclusion into pejoratives are the keys to these moral panics. Right-wing groups try to use the term “parental rights” to put an appealing gloss on their anti-democratic agenda and obscure their goal of imposing a Christian nationalist ideology on others.
As a consequence, red state residents — the have-nots — live in an increasingly grim dystopia. In those states, often obtaining an abortion is impossible, even if not getting one might kill you….
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