First Amendment Commons^™

Fueling The Terrorist Fires With The First Amendment: Religious Freedom, The Anti-Lgbt Right, And Interest Convergence Theory, Kyle C. Velte

Brooklyn Law Review

This article argues that there is a connection between formal equality for LGBT Americans and the United States’ foreign policy and national security interests. It makes that connection utilizing Professor Derek Bell’s interest convergence paradigm. It argues that the new agenda of the American Religious Right is one that seeks to assert quasi-theocratic and anti-Establishment positions in litigation as well as in its promulgation of anti-LGBT laws. This agenda is cloaked in the garb of “religious freedom,” but the Religious Right’s definition of “religious freedom” is one that runs counter to our long-standing understanding of that principle as one that …