SLO DA takes ‘sanctuary’ stand national — to Christian group known for anti-LGBTQ views
District Attorney Dan Dow promoted his declaration that San Luis Obispo County is a “sanctuary county for praise and worship” on a national radio show for a fundamentalist Christian organization that’s been labeled a “hate group” for its anti-LGBTQ views.
On Tuesday, Dow appeared on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” a daily politics broadcast for the Family Research Council, which was designated a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2011.
Dow was a guest on the show due to media coverage of his public declaration in a July 4 video that he would not enforce a state order from Gov. Gavin Newsom that bans singing at houses of worship because of the elevated threat it poses in spreading COVID-19. The governor’s action came on top of fluctuating restrictions on indoor church gatherings.
San Luis Obispo County is currently on the state’s COVID-19 “watch list” and as of Friday had a total of 2,324 coronavirus cases and 18 deaths due to COVID-19.
During the broadcast, Dow told Perkins, the current president of the FRC, that when he first heard of the order preventing singing inside churches, his “heart sank.”
“We need to continue to assert that right (to worship) and push back against government that turns its priorities upside down and turns its back on those very fundamental liberties,” Dow told Perkins.
“I want the citizens in our county to know that they’re free to worship, enter their houses of worship and sing and praise God and they will not be prosecuted for it as a criminal in my county while I’m the district attorney,” he said. “I have discretion as the prosecutor, the one person who can bring all the public offenses in our county to court.”
“My discretion is that if a case is not in the interest of justice to go forward, I shall not do that,” he said.
He also rejected the idea of charging churchgoers with misdemeanor violations when tens of thousands of inmates have been freed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in California’s state prisons.
Dow told Perkins that he has not received any pushback from state officials about his stance, but added that he had received some criticism from “atheists” in San Luis Obispo County.
“I personally believe that the Bible commands us to sing praises to our Lord, and that’s something I’m going to continue to do whether a governor or anybody else says I can’t,” Dow said.
San Luis Obispo County Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein previously told The Tribune that the agency recommends against public singing, especially in choirs or other groups, given the surging rates of COVID-19 infection.
Dow did say on the broadcast, however, that he doesn’t want to give the impression that he thinks people should be “careless and flippant” about the coronavirus pandemic, which he called a “very real situation.”
He did not immediately respond when emailed a request for comment Friday morning about his appearance on “Washington Watch.”
Is Family Research Council a ‘hate group’?
The Family Research Council was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1981 by evangelical Christian author James Dobson, and has a stated mission of advancing “faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview.”
FRC has called its “hate group” designation by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy and civil rights organization that monitors domestic hate organizations, a “deliberately timed smear campaign.”
But SPLC says that while the FRC calls itself “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” its “real specialty is defaming LGBTQ people.”
“The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBTQ community based on discredited research and junk science,” the SPLC website says, waging “battles against same-sex marriage, hate crime laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.”
The FRC is also a proponent of so-called “conversion therapy” — which it calls “sexual orientation change efforts” — shown in studies to have devastating effects on participants.
The SPLC website lists two dozen examples of anti-LGBTQ statements made by Perkins and others associated with the group.
Along with Dow, Tuesday’s “Washington Watch” episode featured Mike Morrell, a California state senator from Ventura County who supports a local pastor’s defiance of COVID-19 restrictions; Lara Trump, wife of President Donald Trump’s son Eric and senior adviser to Trump’s re-election campaign; conservative Christian radio host Dan Celia.
Also on the broadcast was U.S. Rep. Ross Spano of Florida, who publicly voted against the proposed Equality Act, which would extend civil rights protections to LGBTQ individuals, saying it would infringe on the “religious liberty” of people with anti-LGBTQ views.
DA’s comments spark concerns about separation of church, state
Asked for comment on Dow’s appearance on a Family Research Council podcast, Michelle Call, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of the Central Coast (GALA), said his participation with anything affiliated with the organization is “very concerning.”
“Their policies of transgender erasure and repeated arguments that homosexuality leads to pedophilia are absolutely heinous,” Call said Friday. “They’ve had regressive policies since (their founding) — they are definitely anti-LGBTQ.”
Call said she listened to Dow’s guest spot on the broadcast, as well as his appearance as a panelist on a Diversity Coalition of San Luis Obispo County community forum Wednesday night, and found Dow’s words about religion and his discretion as a prosecutor alarming.
“I’m concerned that he will choose which cases to prosecute because of his religious belief system and that marginalized communities will continue to suffer,” Call said.
She said GALA would like to sit down for a conversation with Dow about LGBTQ issues and his recently expressed public views on public safety, though the group had yet to reach out to him when Call was contacted by phone Friday morning.
In May, Dow penned an “open letter to the faith community” in which he wrote that “until there is further clarification from higher courts, this office will not seek criminal enforcement for alleged violations involving those who meet in-person for religious purposes during Phase 2 of the reopening plan so long as social distancing and other health guidelines are followed.”
Less than two weeks later, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a challenge and upheld California’s shutdown order related to religious congregations with a 5-4 vote.
Dow later took the stage at a July 4 event at Sculpterra Winery in Paso Robles with leaders in the Protestant Christian faith community to say that he wouldn’t enforce faith gathering restrictions.
“Today in 2020, more than ever, we need more people attending their houses of worship and seeking help from the almighty for an answer to the coronavirus,” he said in the video.
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 3:37 PM.
