I think some of this friction between the “Religious Freedom” people and the Marriage Equality people is a lack of understanding about public and private space.
Public spaces are governed by laws that apply to the general public, and public spaces. For instance, a black person can come to your door, onto your private property, and you don’t like black people? Well, you can call that person a n****r, and tell them to get off your property. Totally legal.
If a gay couple comes to your open-to-the-public bakery, and wants to buy some scones for their wedding, you have to sell it to them.
I am going to say it again.
You have to take their money.
If you believe that you should not have to take their money, that being forced to take their money is impinging upon your religious beliefs, what you are essentially saying is, “I have the right to treat you differently, because of “freedom of religion”, ergo no Blacks/Jews/Mexicans/whoever are welcome here. If you force me to rent/bake a cake/perform the service that my licensed, tax paying business exists to do for any of these groups, I am experiencing religious persecution.”
If they want to order a wedding cake, you have to make them one.
I think there might be some leeway on how you decorate it, but you gotta make em’ a cake. The whole idea behind protecting the public space, and not allowing people to be discriminated against in the public space is to protect EVERYONE, NOT JUST GAYS/BLACKS/WOMEN/CHILDREN/and unfortunately, you too.
I think a more nuanced approach might work – a sign above your door that says something like, “Be advised: We don’t like Gays/Blacks/Jews/Muslims here, but we will serve you because it’s the law, but we don’t have to be nice to you, and we will spit in your food/make you a krappy Kake/give you subpar service.”
Frankly, I’d love to discriminate against certain flavors of Christianity, like the Westboro Baptists. I’d love to persecute them, to run them out of the country. Yet, they have a right to exist, and to picket in the public space. They can be opposed in the public space too, and thanks to all the good people who have opposed them over the years, from ordinary citizens to the Patriot Guard Riders, bikers who form a wall against them so they cannot disrupt military funerals. But still, tax exempt, a church, and the right to try to spread hate.
So, back to my point: If you operate a private, members-only bakery, where people have to pay a membership fee, you can exclude anybody you want to, this is how schools segregated by gender get away with barring membership for girls (or boys). If you want to discriminate, you need to do it in a “private club” type setting. I imagine the entry requirements of the KKK (ostensibly a private club) would probably exclude several protected groups, but it’s existence is totally legal. Hell, it’s legal to burn a cross on your own property 24/7/365.
Saying that a person’s religious freedom is being infringed upon by forcing a public business to treat a gay couple the same as a straight couple is telling: it speaks to the deeper truth: the resistance to marriage equality is, for many conservatives, rooted in the belief that homosexuals should not exist. I am serious about this. The loathing, the hatred, the belief that homosexuals are hellbound pedo leaning deviants who should be murdered, these are some of the roots of this resistance.
I would ask all of my conservative friends to look deeply into their hearts, and to at least be honest with yourself about how you feel. If you hate gays, admit it at least to yourself.
To those who say, “Love the sinner, hate the sin”, I say, “Let the sinless one cast the first stone.” Those words were supposedly uttered by Jesus of Nazereth, defending a prostitute who was about to be beaten to death with stones for being a prostitute. This is YOUR MYTHOLOGY.
So, Christians who oppose marriage equality, I have a message for you. Your culture is now in the process of being marginalized (in case you don’t know what that means, it means “to be relegated to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group”). This has been happening for decades now. Youth are leaving the conservative churches in droves, and the only growth in Christendom is in those strip mall style churches with the jeans and the pho-rock music (most of these Churches welcome LGBT individuals with open arms, wisely accepting their help, and tithes and offerings, the lifeblood of all religious institutions). You are in the minority now, but not persecuted. Instead of playing the victim, retreat into your cloisters, your churches. Have your own reality in your private spaces. In your churches and schools, you can try to create your own “gay-free” environments, on your private properties. Your tax-exempt status is safe, if Scientology does not have to pay taxes, y’all are gonna be just fine.
The fear mongering. The comparisons to the Roman Empire, comparisons to the Greeks, Sodom and Gomorrah. I’ve heard it all, and when I sat next to the bed of my cousin, Ann Kennedy, on her final day of life, I reflected upon our shared humanity, and the irrelevance of her sexual orientation. I also reflected upon a reality where she would be denied entry to heaven because she was Lesbian, and decided if there was such a place, and Ann was not welcome, I would never want to be there either.
The capriciousness, the arbitrary nature of such beliefs, the rejection of science…I can only shake my head.
If we are created in the image of God, we are all a piece of God. God must represent all human diversity, gender, orientation. Not this white bearded male on a throne in the sky, really people? Really? All the diversity on planet earth, and that’s what you believe?
“I’m against violence, but gays bring it upon themselves.” That is a direct quote from someone I know quite well, and I asked this person if women who dress in short skirts and heels are inviting rape.
I am sure you can guess the answer I received.
We have a long way to go, but we’ve made great strides.
We put a tiny space ship on a comet. Surely we can disagree, and live our own private lives, but co-exist in the public space.
One more thing. A God who created a worm that can change it’s gender based upon environmental factors, and can fertilize itself if no mate is available, but this God cannot tolerate a hot transgender sex scene? What kind of weird, arbitrary chaotic being is this? What kind of mental judo do you have to engage in to suspend your reason and logic to believe this?
Conservative Christians who harbor Intolerance not dissimilar to ISIS, when you enter the public space, your behavior will be treated in the same manner as everyone else. We are Americans, the United States of America. You can masturbate in your private space, you cannot masturbate on the side walk in broad daylight. The public space has rules. You cannot scream racial epithets on the sidewalk either, but you can certainly do it in your own home, or at the Klan meeting. The public space belongs to everyone, even those with whom you disagree, hate, or wish were dead. Hey, we all have those feelings.
Thanks for reading my rant.
It's me
