The Manhattan Declaration is the religious right’s line in the sand: They’re vowing to ignore any laws that contradict their worldview. The document reads:

Therefore, let it be known that we will not comply with any edict that compels us or the institutions we lead to participate in or facilitate abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or any other act that violates the principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family.

Further, let it be known that we will not bend to any rule forcing us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality, marriage, and the family.

Further, let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves.

The Human Rights Campaign immediately lashed out at the signers of the Manhattan Declaration, pointing out that LGBT-rights groups have gone to great pains to make laws that protect both LGBT people and people of faith.

“This declaration simply perpetuates the fallacy that equality and religious liberty are incompatible and that every step toward fairness for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is another burden on religious people. In reality, non-discrimination laws are working all over this country, where religious freedom is existing side-by-side with equal opportunity,” Harry Knox, director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Religion and Faith Program, said in a statement. “Advocates of LGBT equality have taken great pains in their legislative efforts to ensure that the rights of religious organizations and people under the First Amendment are protected. It is deeply cynical for the authors of this document to paint themselves as victims because they cannot have a free hand to discriminate, including with taxpayer dollars.”

After late-August protests, Cleveland and Filson were put on leave from their jobs. Photo: Andy Birkey, MnIndy

Anoka-Hennepin School District 11 teacher Diane Cleveland filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) in Ramsey County District Court Monday, alleging that earlier this summer it wrongly disclosed that she had been accused of harassing a student over his perceived sexual orientation.

Cleveland and another teacher, Walter Filson, who worked at the Secondary Technical Education Program (STEP), which gives 11th and 12th graders the opportunity to receive college credit, allegedly made jokes, comments and innuendos about former student Alex Merritt’s supposed sexual orientation. The teachers were put on unpaid leave, while the case, which received plenty of media attention and public outcry, concluded with a $25,000 settlement agreement in August 2009 between the district and Jodi Merritt, Alex’s mother.

The 28-page complaint (pdf) against the human rights department, which states that she was “portrayed in a negative fashion,” contends that MDHR violated some parts of the Minnesota Human Rights Act (363A.01 et. al.) and the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, Chapter 13, when it printed her name online and provided the summary investigation, which names her, to the Star Tribune.

Cleveland’s attorney, Philip Villaume, said the case centers on her right to privacy. “The law is complicated, but the allegations are simple,” he said.

In the original complaint Cleveland wasn’t a respondent but a witness, so the department “did not have the right to use her name … It violated the confidentiality part of the settlement.”

The original charging documents don’t mention her by name and she was never interviewed by MDHR. That she’s a public employee doesn’t factor into it, he said.

Villaume declined to comment about why the other teacher isn’t a plaintiff in the case, whom he added he doesn’t represent. A press release from Villaume’s office states: “Plaintiff stresses that this action has absolutely nothing to do with the minor child’s complaint filed with the MDHR, only the release of private data by the MDHR.”

Cleveland wants a restraining order and an injunction “restraining the Defendant from publishing her name on their website or dissemination of any information relating to the Plaintiff effective until a trial on the merits of this case,” according to the complaint. She’s also seeking $50,000 in damages, including lost wages, anxiety, humiliation, pain, suffering, mental anguish attorneys’ fees and more.

Jeff Holman, spokesman for the state human rights department, passed on a response from MDHR legal affairs manager, Michael K. Browne, who said that the department acted lawfully under the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

“The Commissioner has a duty to eliminate discrimination through education,” he said, adding that she has the authority to choose the most effective means. “The Department publishes information on closed cases and settlement agreements on its web site, as it did in this case, to fulfill its legislative mandate to educate Minnesotans about their rights and responsibilities under the Act.”

Further, under the law, he said, information is public once a case is closed. MDHR is required to release certain documents upon request.

“The charge included the names of those involved, including teacher Diane Cleveland; refusing to release the charge, or withholding any part of it, would potentially violate the Act,” he said.

Local data practices expert Donald Gemberling said the human rights commissioner has some latitude in releasing information for educational purposes, “showing people how to not get into trouble with the Human Rights Act,” he said.

But he’s unsure if it’s ever been tested.

“The fact that someone is not a respondent is an interesting argument,” he said, adding that it seems well within the department’s authority to do what it did. Sometimes settlement agreements include a provision for confidentiality, but it has no legal effect. “Settlements are public if they involve government entities,” he said.

Many aspects of the data practices law are black and white, but how information about public employees gets handled is murkier. It’s unclear how information flowed from the school district to the state department. Normally, when a department has some leeway in instances like this, “the judge favors the department,” Gemberling said.

Bradlee Dean. Image: YouTube

Bradlee Dean, the founder of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, told the attendees of the group’s “Appeal to Heaven” fundraiser that the media “demonizes” him for bringing his fiery brand of Christianity into public schools.

“What is morality? The fruit of Christ! The fruit of morality is Jesus Christ! That’s why we do high school assemblies,” he said during the fundraiser, which included a videotaped message from Rep. Michele Bachmann.

“Again, people are demonizing me right now, and I think we have a couple of those folks here tonight,” he said. (The Minnesota Independent notified the ministry I would be attending). “Thank you for making me famous! You don’t understand the spiritual world at all, brother!”

He continued, “They demonize me, they take me out of context. I have yet to have one person in media say what I said line-by-line, precept upon precept. They try to demonize the truth because they want to justify themselves.”

Then Dean, stating that he “loves” gays and lesbians, directed his comments at this reporter. “I want to say this because I have love and compassion for the homosexual community. The homosexuals are being exploited by tyrants for their own use.”

“You be sure, liberal people back there,” he said, gesturing to the table where I sat. “Tell them I said so, tell them I love them enough to tell the truth. Tell them it’s not a hate crime to warn them!”

The crowd roared with applause.

Then he concluded:

“To the liberal whackjobs that are here: I love you! Put that in your paper! Put that in your paper! All right?”

Related: ‘You Can Run’ may be running afoul of the Constitution

(Lavverrue, Flickr)

Though the Maine Legislature passed legislation to allow same-sex marriage, residents voted against the bill in a ballot measure on election day by a margin of 53 to 47 percent. The Catholic church was a major funder of the forces opposed to same-sex marriage, and as MPR’s Tom Scheck notes, Minnesota Catholic were among those funding the opposition.

The Diocese of Crookston gave $5,000; the Dioceses of Winona and La Crosse, Wis., each donated $500; and New Ulm’s bishop personally gave $250.

Catholic dioceses around the country spent nearly $560,000 to repeal the same-sex marriage law (total fundraising by opponents of same-sex marriage was over $4 million), but not all Catholics opposed same-sex marriage.

Some 500 Catholics signed a letter stating in part, “We are Catholics who are concerned that the current political campaign to repeal Maine’s civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity, and with vital American traditions of separation of church and state.”

“[The LGBT provisions] were highlighted in a story posted on the left newsblog Minnesota Independent,” wrote Tom Prichard, president of the religious right group, on Tuesday. “They correctly conclude that the focus of pro-life and social conservatives was the battle over abortion coverage mandates in the bill. But then go on to point out a number of provisions slipped in by homosexual activists ‘unnoticed.’ [sic]”

The Family Council says that opposing the “use of our taxpayer dollars to kill, eventually, millions of unborn children, was of supreme importance.”

He continued, “That, however, doesn’t negate the significance of many of provisions [sic] which seek to redefine and thus undermine the basic structure of the natural family. This is, of course, where homosexual activists ultimately want to go.”

But, the group was quick to note its opposition to the LGBT items passed on Saturday. “The provisions show homosexual activists are once again turning to government as a vehicle for indoctrinating young students,” Prichard wrote.

A quick survey of websites of national religious right groups suggests that the Family Council is the first to speak out against those new LGBT health policies, which included better access to Medicaid for HIV-positive Americans, comprehensive sex education, governmental research into health disparities among LGBT people and an end to the taxing of same-sex partner benefits.

Photo: WDCpix

While abortion politics dominated conservative opposition to the health care reform package that barely passed the U.S. House on Saturday evening, several measures in the bill that are beneficial to LGBT Americans largely went unnoticed — especially by conservatives.

The Human Rights Campaign reports it successfully lobbied to get five provisions important to the LGBT community included in the final bill.

Currently, the government doesn’t track health disparities based on sexual orientation and gender identity like it does for race, economic status, marital status, age and a number of other characteristics. The bill that passed the House would add those categories to the government’s data collection practices and would for the first time be able to determine health disparities. That would enable the government to direct funding for research and public health efforts to address those disparities. A similar bill has been offered in Congress, the Ending Health Disparities for LGBT Americans Act.

The House bill also contains language from the Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act. Employer-paid health benefits for a domestic partner are taxed by the federal government as income but benefits for spouses are not. That means same-sex couples that utilize their employers’ health plan pay income taxes that married couples do not. The bill that passed the House on Saturday would fix that inequity.

An important disparity in the treatment of HIV is remedied in the bill. In order for people living with HIV to qualify for Medicaid programs they must have a diagnosis of AIDS — which often comes after years of living with the disease. The new legislation would enable states to qualify individuals who are newly diagnosed with HIV disease for Medicaid programs. That policy is included in the bill as the Early Treatment for HIV Act.

Strong protections to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in health insurance and in the health care system also made it into the House bill.

Finally, the bill provides funding for comprehensive sex education programs that include relevant information for LGBT students.

Many of these policies have drawn fire from the religious right in the past, but recently such groups have been exerting most of their opposition to opposing abortion rights in the health reform bill. And the Stupak Amendment, which aims to ban any federal funding to cover abortion services, dominated the debate over the bill.

For instance, Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth, who railed against the tax equity bill in July, hasn’t mentioned its inclusion in the health bill.

The American Family Association opposed fixing health disparities for LGBT people as early as February, but abandoned that cause to fight against the inclusion of abortion rights in the health reform bill.

And the Family Research Council seems to have completely missed any notice of the LGBT provisions in the bill. The group spent a considerable amount of time and money on opposing abortion in the health reform bill, and FRC president Tony Perkins was even a featured speaker at Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “House Call” event opposing health care reform. He spoke about abortion.

Update: Now Minnesota Family Council is noticing LGBT measures in healthcare bill

“[T]oday, in 2009, in our country, it’s still perfectly legal to fire someone because they’re gay,” Franken told the committee. “You can be a hard worker, show up on time, and get exemplary performance reviews, but if your boss discovers that you’re gay or transgender, they can fire you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Franken noted that Minnesota was the first state in the nation to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and the sky hasn’t fallen here.

Now, most Minnesotans attend religious services every week. Minnesota is home to 19 Fortune 500 companies. Minnesotans enjoy a very high standard of living. So it might surprise some of you that the Minnesota Human Rights Act was passed in 1993. This law protects workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This law has been protecting workers from discrimination for fifteen years, and Minnesota’s sky has not fallen. Minnesota is basically the same as it was before this law was passed with only one small exception—about 20 or so people per year exercise their rights under this law after they are discriminated against based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Only one person spoke against the bill. Craig Parshall, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the National Religious Broadcasters Association, said ENDA would “impose a substantial, unconstitutional burden on religious organizations.”

Despite those concerns, the bill does state that it “shall not apply to a corporation, association, educational institution or institution of learning, or society that is exempt from the religious discrimination provisions of title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Here’s video of Franken’s remarks:

Image: Glen, Flickr

Friday was historic for LGBT Americans as President Obama signed into law a hate crimes bill that includes sexual orientation and gender identity. But some among Minnesota’s religious right didn’t receive the news warmly, saying the law will bring the wrath of God down on America, that Obama is an “anti-Christian radical” and that the bill was a plot by “homosexuals” to silence Christians.

Bradlee Dean of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide ministries in Annandale, a group that brings its message of Christianity and morality into public high schools, slammed the passing of the hate crimes bill on his Saturday radio show, the School of Hard Knocks Roxxs. “If you grab the bull, you are going to get the horns. I want you to listen to me carefully,” he said. “America, as this is being passed again against the majority, I guarantee you that judgments are going to increase in our country… When you begin to pass laws against what God’s words say, God promises to turn that nation into hell that forgets him and if you want to go ahead play the Lord on a national level… Folks, just sit back because it’s only beginning right now.”

Dean repeatedly called gays and lesbians criminals, a familiar theme on his show. The bill, he said, is “there to protect the homosexuals that are perpetrating crimes against the righteous, and you need to understand that Obama’s calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality and he is calling for the criminalization — without saying it — of you.”

On gay marriage, he said, “So the homosexual communities are asking the government for help legalizing that which is illegal. They are also asking for a health care plan to help cure their AIDS from that same government that said it’s okay go ahead and do it.”

He continued, “Rest assured those ignorant homosexuals out there are working overtime to silence the dissent. They want to shut you up.”

Meanwhile, Jan Markell of the Maple Grove–based Olive Tree Ministries, condemned the bill on her popular “end times” radio show on AM 980 KKMS.

“I think that Christians who dare to tell the truth — including this program — about the social, moral, spiritual and health consequences of illicit homosexual acts are accused of hate speech and intimated into silence with threats of fines or jail,” she said. “I think this: The fact that the hate bill had to be passed in such an unscrupulous and cynical manner — which means attaching it to the Defense Authorization Act — reveals the depth of President Obama’s commitment to a radical anti-Christian agenda. I think he will stop at nothing to undermine the will of the majority of Americans to pay back militant homosexual activists who raised millions of dollars for him.”

She continued, “It shows the level of contempt President Obama has for the majority of Americans who oppose the homosexualization of marriage, the military and public education… We really have our work cut out for us.”

Although it has spoken out against the bill in the past, the Minnesota Family Council has been uncharacteristically silent on the bill’s passage and did not reply to a request from the Minnesota Independent. The group’s website says the bill will impose “fines or jail time if you publicly speak out against homosexual activity — even on moral or religious grounds — and a court determines your message might arouse people to hate homosexuals.”

Nationally, religious right leaders were livid. “Public school curriculum could be built entirely on the idea of what is illegal hate in our culture,” said Craig Parshall, chief counsel for National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). “And our children could be indoctrinated [to believe that] if you criticize another religion or mention Jesus as being the only way, that’s hateful— [or] if you say that homosexuality is a sin, that’s hateful.”

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said the bill is “part of a radical social agenda that could ultimately silence Christians and use the force of government to marginalize anyone whose faith is at odds with homosexuality.”

Of course, what the religious right doesn’t mention is that religion has been covered by federal hate crimes law since its inception in the 1960.

“I knew Nate felt strongly. I anticipated (his resignation), but it’s not what I wanted,” associate pastor David Sperstad told the Brainerd Dispatch. “I expected to work with him in ministry for quite a while.”

In early October, a Minneapolis church voted to leave the ELCA over the vote. And a number of churches throughout the state are considering the same.

In Houston, Tex., city controller Annise Parker, who is a lesbian, is running for mayor, but a lit piece sent out to voters last month says that a homosexual should not lead the city.

“Annise Parkers lifestyle that of being a HOMOSEXUAL is not the proper role model to lead the fourth largest city in the United States,” it read. “The Bible speaks clearly against the lifestyle she represents, James 1:8 says, ‘A double minded man is confused in all his ways’. She does not believe in what the scripture says about her lifestyle which in return means she doesn’t believe in God.”

The flier was signed by Christians for Better Government, but the group said it didn’t create the piece and claimed that someone else is using their name.

In Akron, Ohio, Sandra Kurt is running for city council. Last week, a flier signed, “A concerned neighbor,” slammed Kurt for being a lesbian.

The flier says she has “no education or experience in government other than political activism for special rights for homosexuals.” The flier also accuses “homosexuals” of working to “sensor [sic] speech against homosexuality (e.g.. criminalize reading bible passages in church that condemn homosexual behavior), prohibit insurance coverage for therapy to repair their deviant lifestyles, require schools to teach children that homosexual behavior is natural and acceptable.”

In 2008, Ken Herndon, an openly gay candidate for the Louisville, Ky., Metro Council, lost his primary challenge by 112 votes after an anonymous flier “featured a photo of Herndon’s face planted atop the body of a man embracing two other men kissing at a gay-pride parade.” The flier read, “[Herndon] wants us to elect him because he designed new garbage cans?! I guess when you live a life of trash you become pretty familiar with garbage cans.”

Such unsigned fliers attacking LGBT candidates are a common tactic and often are effective at playing to people’s prejudices. Earlier this year, openly gay candidate Derrick Hankerson lost his bid for Dania Beach City Commission in Florida by a scant 98 votes after an anonymous flier portrayed him as “a radical gay drug-dealing felon” was distributed. He plans to sue for libel.

Yet, despite the prevalence of the practice, more and more LGBT people are getting elected into office. According to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, the are 450 openly LGBT elected officials in the United States. And during the 2009 off-season elections, the group is tracking 76 LGBT candidates.