Via Faith in America:

Sorry Rick, your "natural law" code language will not fly

But thanks for keying us in on the religion-based bigotry behind it

Beginning last year, Faith in America's research began noticing a trend among anti-gay religious groups – particularly the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the Family Research Council (FRC).

It appeared as an attempt to distant their anti-gay actions and rhetoric from religious motivation.

Actually, the first hint of this trend occurred in 2009 at a North Carolina conservative church where the Family Research Council and one of its spokespersons, Frank Turek, had gathered a group of area pastors to promote an anti-gay marriage amendment in North Carolina that year.

During a horrific barrage of anti-gay sentiment within the confirms of that church, Turek made the comment that opposition to marriage equality really didn't have anything to do with religion. It was all about natural law, he said.

Attending that session, we found it interesting he would make that comment  considering it was being made in a church before a group of conservative religious leaders – not exactly your nonreligious venue.

Last year we heard similar comments from several leading voices in the anti-gay religious industry. It seemed evident at that point that there was attempt afoot to conceal the religion-based bigotry behind these organizations' effort to promote prejudice, discrimination and hostility toward LGBT people.

Of course we know the reason why. As pointed out in Faith in America's report on Guidelines for Effectively Addressing the Religious Arguments , history shows us  that using religious values to promote bigotry and discrimination is a losing proposition. While that is exactly what the anti-gay religious industry has done for the last 30 years, we can now see how more and more people of faith are turning their back on religion-based bigotry toward LGBT people when it is exposed for what it really is. Faith in America's founding mission was and is to expose and therefore hasten an end to the immense harm caused by this unique form of bigotry.

The battle is being won as we know misguided religious belief that causes harm to innocent people must and can be effectively confronted. It's been happening for centuries.

That is what the anti-gay religious organizations know and that is why we are hearing more and more of this "natural law" argument. Of course it is completely illogically – sort of like persecuting, condemning and rejecting people under a banner of religious values.

Yet the anti-gay religious industry seems fully prepared to use "natural law" as yet another form of code language to conceal and disguise the religion-based bigotry that they cater to for support, votes and cash. And that includes Republican candidates for office who the anti-gay religious industry knows have served them well in promoting stigma and hostility toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Enter GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum. We all know where Santorum stands on LGBT equality and it is not the side of love and respect or human dignity and equality.

In this clip of Santorum speaking yesterday at a grocery store in Iowa, you will hear him attempt to incorporate the "natural law" code language in his argument against marriage equality as he attempts to define marriage for the small audience:

"The bringing together, according to the natural law, people of two genders, in nature, who come together to form a union, for the purpose of the benefit of each of them, as they are made in nature to fit together to live together, one on one, that we see in nature with many species."

OK Rick, we get it. You're attempting to say your opposition has nothing to do with your religious belief. It is all nature and natural law. 

But wait. Santorum had more to say on this topic and in doing so exposed the real basis for his argument against marriage equality and LGBT people in general.

Heterosexual marriage. he continued, is a gift from God. We're sure he just couldn't help himself –  the religious argument has been the anti-gay religious industry's bread-and-butter when it comes to using LGBT people as political fodder. And we suspect he may have realized that his use of a napkin to frame his natural law argument was not going well.

"It's because of nature and nature is God," he said. "Marriage is part of His creation. It is part of His gift."

And from there he went right to the anti-gay religious industry's most pathetic line of reasoning yet – people who use misguided religious teaching to promote prejudice and discrimination are victims because someone dares call out the harm they are causing.

But we have news for Santorum and others who continue to promote a social climate of hostility that wreaks havoc on the lives of gay youth and families – it's not just your bigotry, Rick, we're calling out but your religion-based bigotry and the harm it causes.

And you have every right to use your faith in such an ugly manner. That's the only choice issue in all this. But know this: You will no longer sell it to the American public as something that holds value.