James Dobson, founder of one of America’s so-called “christian” anti-LGBT hate groups Focus on the Family wrote an op-ed on behalf of his James Dobson Family Institute where he condemned the Equality Act which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to give federal protections to LGBT american citizens calling it “treacherous”, “radical”, and claiming that the late great Martin Luther King Jr. would be opposed to it.

Wrote Dobson:

“Make no mistake – the so-called Equality Act is nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to finish off religious liberty in America once and for all, which ought to be plainly obvious based upon a cursory reading of the First Amendment.

The proposal, H.R. 5 and S. 788, would provide special protections for the LGBT community throughout American society. It would state that religious beliefs are not a defense in a dispute between gay rights and constitutionally protected religious rights.

I wish I could say I was shocked to see the speed with which Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats have brought to committee the sweet sounding but entirely treacherous Equality Act.

This decision demonstrates a frightening willingness by those on the left to advance a radical social agenda at a time when our nation already faces so many other divisive challenges.

Simply put, by creating a protected class of citizens out of the LGBT community, this bill places Christians who believe in traditional marriage at grave legal and civil jeopardy.

While no evangelical Christian would ever support hate or violence of any kind against an LGBT individual – or any other person for that matter – to modify the 1964 Civil Rights Act with this wrong-headed bill would not only be legally fraught, it would also put moral equivalence to the unprecedented, centuries-long struggle of countless millions of African Americans to gain freedom from slavery and the persistent, systematic oppression that followed.

Dobson said that whereas “the Civil Rights movement of the 60s was born out of deep faith and in congruence with God’s Word, this bill tramples both underfoot.

In fact, I believe that if Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, we would be standing together in opposition to the Equality Act. We must refrain from the dangerous tendency to divide America into smaller and smaller sub-groups defined first and foremost by our grievances. We are one nation, under God, and we are already blessed with a Constitution and First Amendment that protects every American without criminalizing our most sincerely held religious beliefs.”

What Dobson fails to mention that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on color, race, … employment discrimination on the basis of an individual’s religion, so it is itself a special protected class of citizen.

As for Martin Luther King, Jr., he was not an advocate of LGBT rights, nor was he an enemy, The truth is no one really knows because MLK never publicly talked about the subject. But what we do know is that his right-hand man Bayard Rustin was an openly gay man and that his widow, Coretta Scott King has has been an outspoken supporter of LGBT rights.