What if we had a religion that protected LGBT rights under the umbrella of religious liberty?
- Tiffany Holloway, co-founder of the Church of Prismatic Light (now Prism Sanctuary)
During the first week of 2022, Republican lawmakers in Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and South Dakota introduced at least 9 measures that limit the ability of transgender and nonbinary youths to participate in sports or receive gender-affirming care. According to NBC News, as of May of that year nearly 240 anti-LGBT laws had been proposed. At the more extreme end, the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act – which has been blocked by a federal district court judge while a legal challenge to the law proceeds – would make it a felony punishable by up to 10 years of imprisonment for medical providers to give puberty blockers and hormones to people under the age of 19.
The Prism Sanctuary is a nontheistic religious group founded in mid-April of 2022, promoting a radically inclusive vision of progressive social justice causes and especially focusing on protecting and celebrating trans youth. The Sanctuary has been approved as a nonprofit and is currently pursuing legal recognition as a religious organization. At the time of this writing, it has attracted over 209,000 followers on TikTok.
The tenets of Prismatism include:
- The innate worth and dignity of every individual.
- The inherent right to discover and accept one’s true self and take the steps necessary to present that true self to the world.
- Love is love, and every person has an inherent right to consensual love (including self love) without discrimination.
- The inherent right to bodily autonomy which is subject to their will alone.
- All beings must act with compassion and empathy towards all living things to the best of their ability.
- The inherent right to receive affirming medical care. Medical decisions are at the discretion of the individual and their healthcare providers alone, and shall not be infringed upon. This includes gender affirming medical care and/or medical reproductive care.
- It is our intrinsic duty to fight for the oppressed and to stand against our oppressors when injustice is being done.