Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration act is gay discrimination, pure and simple. You can frost a dog turd, but it's still a dog turd.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) March 31, 2015This weekend, on ABC News’ “This Week,” host George Stephanopoulos rather conscientiously attempted to elicit a “yes” or “no” answer from Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who was invited to clarify the unique language of his state’s recently enacted Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That “yes” or “no” question, “Can a florist in Indiana refuse to serve a gay couple without fear of punishment,” was dodged by Pence, as were additional iterations, ranging from whether the law’s general intent was to enshrine the right of private business owners to deny service to customers for religious reasons, to whether Pence personally believed that such discrimination was lawful. Stephanopoulos insisted that the question was relevant, because one of the law’s supporters, Eric Miller of Advance America, specifically cited the ability of private business owners to refuse service to members of the LGBT community as one of the Indiana law’s major, and particular, selling points. Stephanopoulos offered Pence multiple chances to either correct Miller’s contention, or to publicly confirm that it was true.
There’s an interesting thing that happens when we begin to think our beliefs make us superior moral beings. We begin to look at and define others using our fears and prejudices as the moral yardstick by which we measure their worth. People become less individuals than abstract concepts - right or wrong, good or evil, black or white. We lose the sense that people are just people- flesh and blood human beings who are by and large the same despite differences in ideology, religion, or whatever other factor that can be used to divide us one from the other.
Along with this unfortunate proclivity for breaking humanity down into “us” vs. “them,” we come to think of our take on the world as being the One, True, and Only Faith. Others may think, live, love, and/or believe differently, but that just means they’re not worthy of the things that accrue to those of us wise and enlightened enough to choose the “right” path. They become “unworthy,” “less than,” and undeserving of the benefits we “good” and “decent” folks take for granted.
Along with this comes a disturbing tendency to see this discrimination as “non-discriminatory”…because how can one discriminate against someone who by definition is “less than?” If you don’t view someone as a full member of society, denying them rights you assume as your due isn’t discrimination at all. It’s merely The Way Things Should Be…and treating them as equal would, at least by this definition, be granting “special rights.”
The worst mansfestation of this is when one is so comfortably swaddled in their cloak of Moral Superiority and Godliness that they believe their faith and ideology to be the only correct moral yardstick for measuring a person’s worth. Anyone who questions this perfect, unassailable logic and dares to impugn their righteousness is seen as being intolerant. Because they’re unable to view their intolerance for what it is, they convince themselves that anyone pushing back is intolerant and refusing to respect their religious beliefs. As ridiculous as it may seem, intolerance of intolerance is viewed as the worst sort of anti-Christian intolerance and oppression.
Such is the hermetically sealed moral bubble inhabited by the American Taliban. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is merely the latest example of a socially conservative cafeteria Christian who simply doesn’t care that there may be other, equally valid perspectives on the world.
And people wonder why I have a problem with modern Christianity….
PENCE: George, look, the issue here is, you know, is tolerance a two-way street or not? I mean, you know, there’s a lot of talk about tolerance in this country today having to do with people on the left. And a — but here Indiana steps forward to protect the constitutional rights and privileges of freedom of religion for people of faith and families of faith in our state and this avalanche of intolerance that’s been poured on our state is just outrageous.
That Jesus Christ was abouty love, tolerance, and inclusion doesn’t matter to those who pick and choose what fits their fears and prejudices from the Old Testament. Conflate that with a willful ignorance of the teachings of the Gospel, and what you have is a religion that perfectly dovetails with the intolerance of those who go all “oogly” whenever the subject of homosexuality comes up.
Pence can’t defend RFRA because there’s no credible defense to be had. He either knows that the bill absolutely allows for discriminating against the LGBT community and is fine with it (my guess)…or he’s too stupid to have read the bill he signed. The Governor may be many things- intolerant, homophobic, and hyper-religious chief among them- but he’s not stupid. That said, the fact that he signed RFRA in a ceremony closed to all but select anti-LGBT activists should tell you all you really need to know about the intent of the bill and how it was presented in the Indiana Legislature. Sunlight would have forced the cockroaches to scatter.
RFRA is not about “restoring” religious freedom. Gov. Pence and his fellow travelers on some level have to understand that their rights to their religious faith are neither imperiled nor being nibbled away by godless Liberals. It’s primary and perhaps sole purpose- as some of RFRA’s backers have admitted- is to consign the LGBT community to a lesser legal status as second-class citizens. It’s about hatred, homophobia, and a bastardized cafeteria Christianity. Perhaps worst of all, it’s about a minority class- the American Taliban- who believe their values, fears, and prejudices should by rights informs the laws that govern our social policy. In this view, the beliefs of us, lesser groups don’t matter, because they KNOW what Almighty God demands of them.
I can only hope there will be reserved parking spaces in Hell waiting for Mike Pence and those who support and/or are responsible for RFRA. Americans deserve better. Lord knows Indiana does, but the citizens of the Hoosier State elected the zealots and haters responsible for RFRA. Nice work, eh?
Perhaps boycotting Indiana isn’t such a bad idea. If the sheeple of Indiana are capable of electing representatives capable of this sort of inhuman homophobia, they deserve what they get.
