You know I’m no fan of gay marriage, but it isn’t the only moral sinkhole slowly swallowing America. There’s also the growing acceptance of marijuana legalization, which also leads to gay marriage, because when you’ve got the munchies bad enough, you’ll put anything in your mouth.
- Steve Colbert
I understand that some of y’all think same-sex marriage- or gay ANYTHING- is an abomination before the Lord. Well, good on you, ‘cuz here in ‘Murrica you absolutely have the right (guaranteed by our very own Constitution, don’tchaknow) to believe as you will. It’s a little thing I like to call the 1st Amendment, and it means that you can believe and express yourself (short of advocating violent revolution or assassinating the President) as you choose.
Ain’t ‘Murrica a great place??
Here’s the thing, though; that same 1st Amendment you cloak yourself in to justify and defend your beliefs also applies to others…who may or may not share your beliefs and/or prejudices. Some may actually believe that same-sex marriage- or yes, gay ANYTHING- is simply an expression of love and devotion between two people who live, believe, and love differently than you do. That doesn’t make them immoral, icky, or an abomination before the Lord or Mike Ditka. It makes them Americans.
The 1st Amendment doesn’t protect the “right” to discriminate against someone because you believe their lifestyle to be an apostasy. If you’re in business and you refuse to provide a service to a GLBT couple that you would provide to a heterosexual couple without question, YOU are the problem. Believe it or not, there are laws against this sort of thing, like in Colorado, f’rinstance.
A Colorado baker on Tuesday told Fox & Friends host Elisabeth Hasselbeck that he would be willing to go to jail after a judge ordered him to serve gay couples, saying that opposing same sex marriage is “who I am.”
Last week, administrative law judge Robert N. Spencer ruled that Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips must “cease and desist from discriminating” against LGBT couples because he refused to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple last year.
On Tuesday, Hasselbeck welcomed the baker in a Fox & Friends “Death of Free Enterprise” segment, including friendly screen titles like “Bake Shop Shakedown” and “So Much For Freedom.”
As difficult as it may be for some folks to wrap their pointy li’l hair around this fact, there is no “right” to discriminate against others. If you’re in business, you’re generally defined as providing goods or services to the public. If you refuse to provide said good or service to a GLBT couple because of their sexual preference, you’re not only a miserable excuse for a human being, in some places you’re breaking the law.
Your self-identification as a morally superior being doesn’t connote the freedom to discriminate against others you deem “less than.”
“Does becoming a business owner mean you have to check your convictions at the door?” Hasselbeck asked. “Why is it important for you to have a business and not have to abandon personal religious beliefs just to make a buck?”
“I believe that’s what God’s designed for me to do,” Phillips explained.
Attorney Nicolle Martin, who is representing Phillips, added that “if the government can force you to violate your beliefs under the threat of a jail sentence, there’s really no freedom they can’t take away, Elisabeth.”
OK, so let’s play back this argument, albeit in a slightly different way. Let’s say the couple in question was a heterosexual interracial couple? Would Phillips also be able to claim a religious justification for refusing to sell this couple a cake? Of course not (that would be racism), yet there are those who still claim that such a relationship is an abomination before God. That there’s no Scriptural justification for such discrimation isn’t in question…and the same holds true for GLBT couples. The difference is what some might call the “ick” factor.
Teach a child to hate and you have a Conservative for life….
What’s even more despicable (though not particularly surprising) is that Hasselbeck (and by extension, Fox News Channel) is openly supporting Phillips’ “freedom” to discriminate.
“Do you feel as though you are forfeiting your own rights and being forced, in other words, to participate in their wedding by making a cake for them?” Hasselbeck wondered.
“They would be taking away my rights to do what I do as a business owner, as an American citizen,” Phillips insisted. “And as a follower of Jesus Christ, I don’t believe that’s what he wants me to do. And so my priorities would be towards my faith rather than towards my safety or security.”
“We wish you well,” Hasselbeck said in conclusion.
Right…good luck with your homophobia and bigotry, eh?
I suspect Phillips wouldn’t recognize the teachings of Jesus Christ if the Lord His Own Self showed up with a tarp, a pair of knee pads, and a tube of AstroGlide. Despite Phillips’ claims to the contrary, this isn’t about his alleged “Christian” beliefs (evidently he excludes charity and tolerance). It’s about his own personal prejudice wrapped in the warm embrace of Christianity, which has been used to justify everything from discrimination to genocide. If Phillips is a Christian, I’m the Vicar of London. As it is, he represents everything wrong with modern Christianity and the personification of why God’s fan club terrifies me so.
Jack Phillips is free to his beliefs. Sadly for him, those beliefs don’t provide him justification discriminate against those he considers “less than.” Even worse, Phillips seems to have a very incomplete understandings of the Christ he purports to revere. Hatred and discrimination are NOT Christian values…but they certainly work well enough when one can use them to rationalize fear and/or prejudice.
