Bongo Thompson: Religious liberties shouldn’t outweigh civil rights

At 8:54 PM on Aug. 28, 1957, Strom Thurmond started talking. The Dixiecrat senator from South Carolina had a lot to say. With the support of President Eisenhower and Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, the Senate was poised to pass the first civil rights act in 82 years.

Its main provision was the creation of a civil rights division in the Department of Justice that could file lawsuits on behalf of disenfranchised voters, but even Thurmond’s fellow arch-segregationist Dixiecrats in the Senate didn’t bother to put up much of a fight against the bill when they realized that entirely white juries would in all practicality be responsible for deciding cases of disenfranchisement in their home states and the bill would therefore be effectively useless for Black voters.

The bill was symbolic at best, but symbolism was still a step too far for Thurmond, who bucked the trend among the Dixiecrats and plotted to delay the bill with a filibuster. In order to prepare for what would end up being a long ordeal, he took steam baths every day to dehydrate his body so that on the Senate floor he could soak up moisture to save him from having to use the restroom while he talked.

Thurmond’s filibuster became the longest in the history of the United States Senate – a record that he still holds. Despite being hell-bent on stopping an already lousy civil rights bill, Thurmond took care not to be labeled a racist. As the New York Times wrote the day after, “No shade of racist language marked his speech. His whole argument was that the civil rights bill was unconstitutional, that voting qualifications were a prerogative of the state. ‘I want,’ he said, ‘to see every man vote who is qualified to vote.’ ”

In other words, he would have loved to support civil rights, but states’ rights were simply too important to be ignored.

Reading from the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and George Washington’s farewell address, Thurmond eventually became so exhausted that he hunched over on his lectern and mumbled his speech to the point that it became nearly impossible to hear. He was aided in his effort by cooked bits of hamburger and a glass of orange juice – the latter given by his Democratic colleague from Illinois. His Senate aides prepared a bucket in the cloakroom, in case Thurmond needed to urinate while keeping one foot on the Senate floor. The filibuster lasted for 24 hours and 18 minutes; he spoke for so long that it cost $6,468 ($58,835 in 2019 dollars) to print for the congressional record.

But it was a losing battle. The bill passed 60-15 after the filibuster ended and was signed into law by Eisenhower. Strom Thurmond may have lost the battle over civil rights but his brand of obstructionism won the war in the Republican Party, which he converted to 4 months after the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed racial segregation.

In February 2021, the House passed the Equality Act, a bill that would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include protections against LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace, education and housing. All but three House Republicans voted against it. Some members said the quiet part loud; Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert proclaimed, “There’s nothing about equality in that act. If anything, it’s supremacy of gays and lesbians and transvestites.” Arizona Congresswoman Debbie Lesko tweeted, “The Dems’ so-called ‘Equality Act’ would force schools and women’s shelters to allow biological men into women’s spaces, including women’s bathrooms and locker rooms! This completely undermines women and girls’ privacy!”

These outwardly bigoted remarks were the exceptions to the rule.

Most Republicans attempted to obfuscate their own opposition to LGBTQ rights by trotting out a supposed infringement on religious liberties. The actual difference between those two justifications is questionable. The more buttoned-up justification hinges upon the argument that because the Equality Act doesn’t explicitly exclude places of worship from anti-discrimination statutes it’s a violation of religious freedoms. Put bluntly, the belief is that churches and synagogues should be allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Defending her “no” vote, the office of Cathy McMorris Rodgers explained, “We can all agree that no American should be discriminated against. Discrimination based on race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, age and religious beliefs is wrong. While well intentioned, the Equality Act does not do enough to protect religious liberty.”

In other words, we would love to support civil rights, but religious liberties are simply too important to be ignored.

Bongo Thompson lives in Spokane.