By Mike Appleton, Weekend Contributor
“This bill is not about allowing discrimination. This bill is about preventing discrimination against people who are clearly living out their faith.”
-Arizona State Sen. Steve Yarbrough (R), on SB 1062.
Assaults on the civil rights of homosexuals and the acceptance of gay marriage have been the focus of a number of state legislatures. The most recent lunacy is a bill in Arizona that now awaits action by Gov. Brewer. The bill amends sections of the Arizona Revised Statutes by incorporating provisions that effectively insulate many forms of grossly discriminatory conduct from legal consequence if done under the cloak of religion. This is accomplished in three steps. First, the bill defines “exercise of religion” to include “the ability to act or refusal to act in a manner substantially motivated by a religious belief, whether or not the exercise is compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief.” Second, the bill expands the definition of “person” to include “any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, religious assembly or institution, estate, trust, foundation or other legal entity.” I refer to this as the “Hobby Lobby” amendment. Finally, the bill prohibits, with a strict scrutiny exception, any “state action” that substantially burdens the free exercise of religion even if that state action is a law of general application.
I anticipate that the governor will veto this atrocity, not as a matter of constitutional principle, but out of concern that enactment of the law would further harm Arizona’s reputation and economic interests. But it is nonetheless disturbing that legislators would willingly employ a fundamental freedom as a weapon against a disfavored group of citizens.The legislation has been pushed by the usual suspects. Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council, has written a piece entitled “The Top Ten Harms of Same-Sex Marriage,” in which he claims, inter alia, that recognition of marital rights for gays threatens the religious liberty of “individual believers trying to live their lives in accordance with their faith not only at church, but at home, in their neighborhoods, and in the workplace.” That, of course, is merely another way of saying that Mr. Sprigg’s religious beliefs must prevail over yours in the event of a conflict, even to the point of requiring that you live somewhere other than where you may wish to live and work somewhere other than where you may wish to work. Mr. Sprigg, who was formerly the pastor of the Clifton Park Center Baptist Church in Clifton Park, New York, believes that tolerance is a synonym for endorsement.
Or consider the words of the Rev. H.M. Goodwin, who lamented the damage to “the unity of the family as a social organism,” striking “at the root of that which should be the first and foremost end of government to protect, the sacred unity of the Family.” Or perhaps don’t consider the words of Rev. Goodwin, because he wrote them in 1884 and the object of his outrage was actually the growing movement in support of women’s suffrage. In that same article, Rev. Goodwin complained of increasing secularism, an example of which was the removal of the Bible from public school classrooms at the instance of “Catholics and infidels.”
The history of this country is littered with appeals to God in defense of oppression. In 1822, Richard Furman, a church pastor in Charleston, South Carolina, wrote a letter to Gov. John Lyde Wilson claiming that slavery “is justifiable by the doctrine and example contained in Holy writ; and is, therefore, consistent with Christian uprightness, both in sentiment and conduct.” That argument became discredited through time and the Civil War, of course, but its legacy was a system of laws that persisted for decades until intervention by the courts, an intervention that the late religious leader W.A. Criswell decried as “a denial of all that we believe in” fomented by proponents of racial integration which he labeled “a bunch of infidels, dying from the neck up.”
The point is that every advance in the rights of man has had to overcome preachers of hatred and theologians of exclusion. Every attempt to admit to the fullness of civic, political and social life a group previously rejected out of ignorance and fear has been resisted by those asserting sole possession of divine truth. And years later, after the battles have been won and the opponents are long since dead, their words are finally recognized for what they are, the intolerant rants of false prophets.
In April of 1965, Lester Maddox stood at the entrance to his Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta, axe handle in hand, to block three black Georgia Tech students from entering. Mr. Maddox closed his restaurant later that summer rather than comply with court-ordered desegregation, but carried his views all the way to the Georgia governor’s mansion several years later.
In retrospect, Mr. Maddox made a tactical error. Instead of the same old tired arguments about property rights and federalism, he should have cited the Free Exercise Clause. He should have argued that his sincerely held religious beliefs prohibited his serving a ham sandwich to the children of Ham. Or perhaps he should have moved his restaurant to Arizona, where politicians have determined that religious balkanization is a healthy trend and that religious extremism in the defense of bigotry is no vice.
Sources: Goodwin, H.M., “Women’s Suffrage,” The New Englander,” No. CLXXIX (March, 1884); Freeman, Curtis, ” ‘ Never Had I Been So Blind’: W.A. Criswell’s ‘Change’ on Racial Segregation,” Journal of Southern Religion, Vol. X (2007); Sprigg, Peter, “The Top Ten Harms of Same-Sex Marriage,” Family Research Council (2011).
There’s no accounting for the strange notions of some people. They used to burn women who gathered medicinal plants a s witches.
Sheesh, next they’ll be discriminating against Prcotologists. 😉
Another thought, garbage men, butchers, nurses and docs deal with bodily fluids and substances on a daily basis, should they also be prohibited from being served in business establishments because they may have been in contact with such waste products? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been vomited on, coughed on with sputum caught in my hair, gotten feces on my uniform, blood and urine on my shoes. When I left the hospital my scrubs went in the laundry bin, my shoes, I washed. My hands got scrubbed so many times they were raw. The notion that people are “dirty” because they may have come in contact wih certain bodily substances is simply nutty. Those new fangled contraptions called showers are just great after a hard days work, or a hard night of lovin’.
davidm:
When the law protects any class, there will be lawsuits filed under the law, both with and without merit.
Elaine, just think of what they would do to our country if they had their way. It’s chilling.
Randy Lee:
I have no idea how issues of hygiene are dealt with concerning anal intercourse, and I doubt that you do either, but I expect that those who engage in it, whether heterosexual or homosexual, have the requisite understanding. And although I have never discussed the details of physical intimacy with a gay person, I have never heard anyone equate it with a “desire to play in excrement.” You either have a peculiar imagination or are confusing homosexuality with a particular fetish. That fetish, as I indicated earlier, is not the topic of my comment, has no bearing on the statute in question, and is more properly covered on websites which more particularly relate to your interest in the matter.
Wow, just wow. I’m disgusted by these bigoted people here, I suggest they not be allowed to enter this forum anymore.
( I’m using this as an example, and I don’ think they should really be prohibited from commenting)
How does it feel, do you think it’s fair?
annie,
There are those commenting on this thread who want our country to emulate Putin’s Russia.
*****
davidm2575
Annie wrote: “The cause would be promiscuity, not homosexuality.”
But the problem is that if the law protects this special class, there will be lawsuits based upon that, whether or not they have merit. Perhaps you do not realize that promiscuity goes along with being a gay man about like wearing makeup goes along with being a woman.
*****
Not all women are of the overdone makeup ilk like the infamous, clown-faced Tammy Faye Bakker. Neither my daughter nor I wear makeup.
How do you know that most homosexual men are promiscuous? Do you hang out with them? Do you spy on them? Did the good Lord tell you that directly…or by phone…or email?
Elaine wrote: ” Neither my daughter nor I wear makeup.”
Yea, I don’t wear makeup either. I noticed, however, that you did not say that you have never worn makeup. Have you ever worn makeup?
Elaine wrote: “How do you know that most homosexual men are promiscuous?”
I have nearly a dozen books in my library about homosexuality. One of them is titled, “Homosexualities: A study of diversity among men & women” by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg. They report that over 90% of WHM (White Homosexual Men) have had 25 or more partners. Some 83% reported between 100 and 500 sexual partners. Some 50% of them reported more than 500 sexual partners. Virtually all of the male homosexuals reported at least one affair. Many other studies report similar results. It really is common knowledge among homosexuals. Virtually all of them in the Bell and Weinberg study cruise for sexual partners.
David are you suggesting that all gay people are promiscuous? Some young people are promiscuous, no matter what their sexual orientation. My cousin is a lesbian, she had a life partner until she died a few years ago. My son in law has a cousin who has been in a committed relationship wih his partner for over ten years, another in law, a lesbian, again in a committed monogamous relationship. These generalizations and mistruths about gay people are sounding more and more like the hate speech against Jews.
What is wrong with some people? Would they refuse to associate with someone because the make grimaces and drool (Cerebral Palsy), yell out curse words uncontrollably (Tourette’s Syndrome), shake (Parkinson’s). No one says you have to be their friend, but to discriminate against them based on something they cannot change is truly repugnant. Do you not see the similarities between this and people in Germany who were told Jews were repugnant?
Juden verboten! Good lord could it happen here? I think that what may happen is that people will be so disgusted with his bigotry that even those on the far right will start speaking out in much bigger numbers.
Samantha do you seriously think that conservative or libertaraian gay people are in favor of being discriminated against because of their sexual identity? I hardly think they are in favor of such legislation, unless they are masochists.
Annie wrote: “… to discriminate against them based on something they cannot change is truly repugnant.”
Another assumption which you apparently do not understand people like me are not in agreement with, despite how many times we repeat ourselves. You assume they cannot change, without proof, and you ignore the plethora of examples of people who have changed. Carry on.
p.s. You may not realize, but a lot of hetersexual men claim they cannot be faithful to their wives. It is just who they are. Do you excuse them too? Should we add adultery to the list of sexual orientations which we are not allowed to discriminate against?
Randy,
I can comprehend just fine. Some heterosexual men have anal sex with women. If businessmen and women who think that people who have anal should be a disqualified from receiving their services then shouldn’t those business people also exclude heterosexuals who have anal sex from receiving their services? If anal sex is your main problem–then why discriminate against lesbians when they don’t have anal sex?
I would never want to socialize with individuals who believe discrimination against others should be tolerated. As far as I’m concerned discrimination, intolerance, bigotry is far far more repugnant to me than changing my granddaughter’s dirty diapers.
Elaine M.
“I find your analogy of human beings to excrement repugnant”.
Can’t you read and comprehend? For you and any others that didn’t comprehend the analogy, let’s be clear, it wasn’t a comparison of “humans to excrement”.
The comparison was between having anal sex and playing in the potty. And the people I associate with do see the analogy there, and find it extremely repugnant.
If for example I was a woman and my partner wanted to have anal sex with me, I would tell them “Go play in the potty until you are sick of playing in excrement .” .
Now Elaine, if you don’t find playing in excrement repugnant then, get after it. I just hope I am not placed in the position that I would be forced to associate with you or persons of that mindset. And if I can avoid it, believe me, I will!, Arizona law, or no law! Heterosexual or homosexual, makes no difference to me. I find it extremely unnatural to desire to play in excrement, and I choose not to associate with persons whom I am aware practice such activity.
It is certainaly hard to know with respect to heterosexuals. But such practices are almost a given with regard to homosexuals. Odds are better if I choose to be on the safe side. This is why I am thankful that I can rely on my natural inalienable right to dis-associate.
Randy, if I may add:
State child protective agencies routinely take children from homes where excrement is part of the filth. As far as I know, they don’t hand out free passes just because you bathe your kids before sending them off to school.
Samantha,
How can you say that…. Tolerance is the issue…..
Kansas’ anti-gay bill: another attempt to force warped Christianity on others
Conservatives keep trying to use America’s religious freedom as a way to limit everyone else’s rights
Jill Filipovic
theguardian.com
17 February 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/feb/17/kansas-anti-gay-bill-religious-freedom-test
Excerpt:
Last week, the Kansas House of Representatives passed a bill (pdf) that would have broadly legalized discrimination against gays and lesbians. Luckily, after national outrage, the bill was halted. But the fight isn’t over: the bill’s reliance on religious freedom to justify discrimination is a sign of right-wing efforts to come.
The bill’s scope was impressive in its expansiveness: Kansans would have been able to legally refuse to provide just about any service to anyone whose relationship they dislike for religious reasons, and could have refused to provide services “related to” any relationship they dislike for religious reasons. The bill specifically enumerated adoption, foster care, counseling, social services, employment and employment benefits, as well as the general categories of “services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges”, as permissible areas for discrimination.
In other words, under the bill, any individual Kansan could have hung a “No Gays, No Lesbians, No Dogs” sign on the door of his restaurant. Any individual Kansan could have refused to hire someone, serve someone a drink, rent someone an apartment, sell someone a pair of pants or accommodate someone at a hotel if that someone is gay. Any employer could even have refused to extend insurance coverage to a gay employee’s husband or wife if he thinks same-sex marriage is wrong. Even government employees paid with everyone’s tax dollars would have had carte blanche to discriminate – social workers don’t have to work with gay couples, police officers don’t have to come to the assistance of a gay person in need.
And if a gay person discriminated against by an individual or a private business decided to sue? They would not only lose, but under this bill, they would have had to pay the other side’s attorney’s fees.
This hateful backlash is, of course, a response to the increasing acceptance of same-sex marriage, and the fact that marriage equality’s inevitability is finally dawning on conservatives. Virginia is the latest state to see laws against same-sex marriage fall, and it won’t be the last. But situating the discrimination in religious liberty is about more than just homophobia: it’s part of a larger right-wing strategy to allow those who hold particular religious beliefs to make the rest of us live according to their whims.
davidm:
Bad analogies make for misleading arguments, but they sometimes bring us to the core of a disagreement. Your last comment to Annie is a good example. Here’s why.
The policy underlying anti-discrimination laws is our commitment to equal protection of the laws. Fundamental to that concept is the notion that certain types of classifications ought not be regarded as acceptable grounds for different treatment. So we say that a person may not be refused service at a restaurant solely on the basis of that person’s race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. That does not mean that if a restaurant patron is abusive or disruptive, he or she may not be instructed to leave the premises, with the assistance of law enforcement officers if necessary. (Libertarians such as Randy Lee would argue that as a matter of personal liberty, the owner of a business is free to refuse service to anyone at any time and for any reason or no reason at all.)
If a physician counsels a patient against promiscuous behavior which in the physician’s opinion creates unreasonable risks of disease, and the patient declines to follow that advice, the physician is certainly free to drop the patient. But in that instance, the decision is based not on the classification of the patient as heterosexual or homosexual, but on the patient’s continued refusal to follow the physician’s medical recommendations. For the same reason a physician could ethically decline to continue seeing a patient who refused to quit smoking. (There are other considerations applicable to physician/patient, attorney/client and other relationships in occupations traditionally understood as professions, but they are not relevant to this discussion.)
The reason that you, Randy Lee, samantha and others who share your views do not believe that anti-discrimination laws should be applicable to homosexuals is that you do not believe that homosexuality is a classification entitled to protection. And you do not believe that because you regard homosexuality as a behavior rather than a biological description. (There are, of course, also persons who argue that homosexuality is a mental or pathological disorder, like pedophilia). But science increasingly supports the view that homosexuality is not a “lifestyle choice,” and as a result the public increasingly supports the view that a person’s status as a homosexual should not subject that person to disparate treatment under the law.
In the absence of common agreement on the nature of homosexuality, it is not possible to agree on the proper status of homosexuals under the law. And that divide will most certainly not be closed on this thread.
Appleton, if you’re going to announce what I believe, at least have the courtesy to get it right! Your global condescension doesn’t help. You speak as though there is no such thing as a conservative gay, a religious gay, a tea party gay, Republican gay, libertarian, or even that there’s no such thing as a liberal pro-lifer. There’s far more to life than your two-team view, explaining why so many that you believe are in your camp, look askance at you. I don’t need to know that you’re liberal or conservative or in between when concluding you are out on a limb. I also don’t need a crowd behind me.
People need to get a life and quit worrying about in public what most people do in private….
davidm,
Just because something is your opinion doesn’t make it right. Why do you think it’s okay to discriminate against gays and lesbians?
I think it’s wrong to discriminate against people because of their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation. As I wrote in an earlier comment–I believe all people should be treated with respect…and equally.
Elaine M wrote: “Why do you think it’s okay to discriminate against gays and lesbians?”
Because I view the gay lifestyle very much like I view alcoholism. There is a genetic basis for alcoholism, but there also are environmental and cognitive factors that determine who becomes an alcoholic. Once a person practices alcoholism, there are numerous harmful effects, so I think it is proper for people to discourage alcoholism. You might all that discrimination, but it is what it is. I can’t control the derogatory words you choose to use.
The truth is that if the homosexual community was not so aggressive, and if its advocates were more honest, such as not denying an obvious agenda to transform our culture through tactics that focus on owning language, promoting activism, and constant legal onslaughts, I would readily subscribe to laws that forbid discrimination against someone for sexual orientation. The problem is that once that law is there, people will have to waste time defending themselves against lawsuits simply on the evidence that someone disagrees with the homosexual lifestyle. Furthermore, I strongly believe that achieving such is only the beginning, not the end. It will force upon society a philosophy of free sex and hedonism, something I consider harmful to society as a whole. The destruction of marriage will be fully accomplished and it moves us backward from civilization toward barbarism. Society will become weaker, not stronger. The economy will become worse, not better.
Let me state this in analogy with alcoholism. Some alcoholics claim that they are alcoholics and can never be cured. Even if they are not drinking, they are still alcoholics. Suppose the law was established to add alcoholic orientation to the list of categories which should not be discriminated against. Then suppose I choose not to hire someone because I am repulsed by his alcoholic lifestyle. I can argue all I want that I do not discriminate against him because of his orientation toward liking alcoholic drinks, it is not going to fly in court. The Judge might even be an alcoholic himself.
My attitude is pretty much the same with the homosexual issue. I have pleaded with many young college students who considered themselves homosexual but still virgins, not to go down that lifestyle path. I have seen the destructive nature of it, and I have had gay friends who have asked for my help to escape that lifestyle. I would never discriminate against homosexuals because of their sexual orientation. In fact, I have been called a homosexual lover by many bigoted religious people simply because I do readily associate with homosexuals. But I still maintain that it is my right to disagree with the idea that homosexuality is a civil rights issue, and that I have a right to outline the dangers of that lifestyle choice, or even to maintain that choice is indeed involved with all forms of sexuality, including homosexuality. I do not believe that I should be forced to help homosexuals get married, to photograph their weddings, to bake them cakes to help celebrate their union, or do anything to further the validation of that lifestyle.
I am of this persuasion for non-religious reasons, but a lot of religious people have the same perspective. Some even call it the “love the sinner but hate the sin” perspective. I think the law is lining up against these religious people, and such is a gross miscarriage of justice. We need laws to buttress the free exercise of religion because it is so closely related to the exercise of free speech. I object to defining a class of people using a term like “sexual orientation” because it is the wrong direction of law. So many sexualities can be categorized under this label, from pedophilia, to polygamy, to exhibitionism, voyeurism, even peeping Toms who claim they hurt nobody.
Outside links to opinions that back up your own is consensus building. You can speak here without links, but that doesn’t make it true either.
Sorry Elaine, I know you can defend yourself.
Arizona’s “Religious Freedom” Bill in the Hands of Governor Brewer
By Matthew Hendley
Feb. 21 2014
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2014/02/arizonas_religious_freedom_bil.php
Excerpt:
The Arizona House of Representatives passed the anti-LGBT “religious freedom” bill, which now heads to Governor Jan Brewer for her approval.
Despite House Democrats putting up a strong fight against the bill, just three of their colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted against the bill, which the rest of the Republican majority was able to pass with a 33-27 vote.
The bill would expand the rights of businesses to make exercise-of-religion claims in court. Senate Bill 1062 sponsor Republican Steve Yarbrough specifically has likened his legislation to the case in New Mexico, in which a wedding photographer refused to photograph a lesbian couple’s wedding. Yarbrough’s bill would give the photographer a defense of exercising a “sincerely held religious belief,” if that were an Arizona case.
Many of the arguments against the bill were compelling.
Democratic Representative Demion Clinco, who was just sworn in as a new legislator a couple weeks ago to fill a vacancy, spoke out against this bill, as the only openly gay member of the House. He said because of how he’s been treated, including being assaulted in high school, he’s spent most of his life downplaying that he’s gay, and this bill certainly wouldn’t help reverse that.
“I don’t think this is what the founders intended [as religious freedoms], and to hide it behind religious freedom is an embarrassment to religions,” Clinco said.
And I should add that it would also be a case of a non compliant patient. Not all gay people are promiscuous. Some are boring stay at home couples.