A win against hypocrisy

A couple of days ago, it was "Heterosexual Pride Day," which gave me an opportunity to reflect on the long, hard road I've had coming out and being accepted as a straight white cis-gender male.  A day to stand up tall and not be afraid to be who I am.

Or as the rest of the world calls it, every other damn day of the year.

I suppose the only cheering thing about this dazzling display of "I Don't Get It" is that it's indicative that we've made some strides in accepting that sexual orientation and gender identification aren't as either/or as the bigots of the world would like us to believe.  We're finally approaching a place where LGBT individuals have both recognition and a voice, which means that inevitably there's going to be some backlash.

The fact that we're moving forward, if too slowly for a lot of us, is supported by news out of (of all places) Mississippi, where a federal judge has blocked House Bill 1523, euphemistically called by its supporters the "Religious Freedom Law."  Because in some people's minds "religious freedom" apparently means "freedom to discriminate."  These are the same people who worship a figure who is described in the bible as socializing with (and caring about) prostitutes and tax collectors, and yet somehow they still think it's a sin to bake a cake for a gay couple.

Fortunately, U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves saw through this hypocrisy, and wrote sixty pages' worth of opinion tearing the claim to little shreds.

Judge Carlton W. Reeves [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Here is a bit of the actual opinion:

The Establishment Clause is violated because persons who hold contrary religious beliefs are unprotected – the State has put its thumb on the scale to favor some religious beliefs over others.  Showing such favor tells “nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and . . . adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.” Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 309-10 (2000)...  And the Equal Protection Clause is violated by HB 1523’s authorization of arbitrary discrimination against lesbian, gay, transgender, and unmarried persons... 

As the Obergefell majority makes clear, the First Amendment must protect the rights of [religious] individuals, even when they are agents of government, to voice their personal objections – this, too, is an essential part of the conversation – but the doctrine of equal dignity prohibits them from acting on those objections, particularly in their official capacities, in a way that demeans or subordinates LGBT individuals... 

In this case, moreover, it is difficult to see the compelling government interest in favoring three enumerated religious beliefs over others.  “[T]he goal of basic ‘fairness’ is hardly furthered by the Act’s discriminatory preference” for one set of beliefs. Edwards, 482 U.S. at 588.  It is not within our tradition to respect one clerk’s religious objection to issuing a same-sex marriage license, but refuse another clerk’s religious objection to issuing a marriage license to a formerly-divorced person.  The government is not in a position to referee the validity of Leviticus 18:22 (“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”) versus Leviticus 21:14 (“A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take.”)...

Religious freedom was one of the building blocks of this great nation, and after the nation was torn apart, the guarantee of equal protection under law was used to stitch it back together.  But HB 1523 does not honor that tradition of religion freedom, nor does it respect the equal dignity of all of Mississippi’s citizens.  It must be enjoined.

To which I would only have added, "Booyah!"  (Illustrating why I did not choose law as a career.)  I think it was that second-to-last paragraph that I enjoyed the most; pointing out that the folks who would like to exercise their bigotry against LGBT people usually don't blink an eye about other things that are prohibited in the bible -- like divorced people remarrying, like eating shellfish, like women stating their opinions on religious matters.  (The latter was considered so important that it appears in two places, 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34 -- the actual quotes are, "I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence" and "Women should remain silent in the churches.  They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.")

The upshot of it all is that we're making progress toward treating all people with dignity -- however slow the motion forward is, we are moving forward.  And to Judge Carlton Reeves, I can only say thank you on behalf of my LGBT friends.  It's about time someone in an official capacity stands up and calls out these "religious freedom laws" for the bigoted hypocrisy they are.

Legalizing hypocrisy

I cannot stomach pious hypocrisy.

Unfortunately, that's all we're being served by Congress at the moment with respect to providing protection to LGBT individuals.  Only days after one of the worst mass murders of gays and lesbians ever, the House of Representatives voted to block a bill protecting LGBT employees of federal contractors.  The sponsor of the bill, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, thought it'd be a no-brainer.

"It’s hard to imagine that any act that is so horrific could lead to anything positive," Maloney said.  "But if we were going to do anything, it would be a very positive step to say that discrimination has no place in our law and to reaffirm the president’s actions in this area.  Seems to me a pretty basic thing to do."

Seems so to me, too.  The House disagreed.  So do the majority of state governments, apparently.  At the time of this writing, less than half of the states in the US (22, to be precise) have anti-discrimination laws that address sexual orientation.  Only 19 specifically address gender identity.

Instead, many states are now moving toward passing laws legalizing discrimination against LGBT individuals based on "deeply-held religious ideals."  Three -- Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee -- already have such laws.

You know what?  If your religion impels you to discriminate against a minority, you need to find a different fucking religion.

So the pious hypocrites keep pretending to care, while simultaneously sandbagging every piece of legislation that might actually make a difference.  And the toll keeps rising, not only because of well-publicized events like the Orlando massacre, but because of the ongoing pressure on LGBT individuals to hide and/or deny who they are.  No surprise, is it, that suicide rates are four times higher among LGBT youth than straight ones, and nearly a quarter of transgender individuals have attempted to take their own lives?

Oh, but never mind all that, because House Rules Committee chairman, Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, said his "thoughts and prayers" were with the people of Orlando after the attack.  That should be enough, right?  Then he turned around and joined the others in voting to block the anti-discrimination bill, and when interviewed about it all, even denied that Pulse was a gay nightclub. "It was a young person’s nightclub, I’m told," Sessions said.  "And there were some [LGBT people] there, but it was mostly Latinos."

Because "Latino" and "gay" are apparently mutually exclusive categories.

So to Sessions and his colleagues, I have the following to say: you can take your thoughts and prayers and stick them up your ass.  Sideways.  Your thoughts and prayers accomplish nothing.  Your actions, on the other hand, perpetuate prejudice and discrimination.  You and and the rest of Congress had the opportunity to make a difference.  Instead, you chose to side with the bigots, all the while uttering mealy-mouthed platitudes designed to feign a stance of compassion.

Well, you're not fooling anyone.

Nor are the powers-that-be in North Carolina, where there's been an ongoing battle over the law prohibiting transgender individuals from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identification because of some bullshit argument about protecting women from attacks, and yet which authorized the destruction of 72 rape kits containing genetic evidence from open/unsolved cases of rape and molestation.

Right, North Carolina officials.  Explain to me again how much you care about attacks on innocent women and children, and how the bathroom bill was totally not about discrimination against LGBT individuals.

And the right-wing media continues to misrepresent the situation, and people continue to be suckered.  Just a couple of days ago, I saw a post on Facebook from a friend of a friend that might be the most vile thing I've ever seen on social media.  This woman went on for paragraphs about how sick she was of the liberals destroying the moral fiber of America, and how she was furious that "gays and lesbians now have more rights" than she does, and how there's an agenda to take away all of the rights from straight white working-class Americans.

I felt physically ill after reading this.  More rights?  Such as what?  Such as the right to walk down the street holding hands with the person you love without being afraid that you'll be harassed, attacked, perhaps killed?  The right to ask someone out in a bar without having the nagging fear that if you guess wrong, it might be the last mistake you'll ever make?  The right to marry, the right to expect service in a place of business, the right to hold down a job and not be the subject of discrimination over something you can't control?

At least if you're going to hold these sorts of beliefs, then be up front about the fact that you're espousing a doctrine of hatred against an entire sector of our society.  Don't try to hide behind a pious shield of false and twisted morality.  Maybe you're the ones that need to re-read a few passages in your favorite book, most especially Matthew, chapter 23:

[T]hey say, and do not.  For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.  Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

News from the fringe

It's getting to the point that I'm not entirely sure whether the hyperreligious types here in the United States might be engaging in an elaborate act of self-parody.

I mean, is it just me, or have their claims been getting more and more ridiculous?  As I was casting about yesterday for a topic for today's post, I ran across not one, nor two, but three stories that made me say, "Okay, be honest.  You people aren't serious, right?"

First, we had the Jehovah's Witnesses releasing a creepy cartoon aimed at children, trying to convince them that if they have friends with LGBT parents, it's their duty to make sure that the friends find out that their parents are sinners who are doomed to hell.

The cartoon features a little girl who comes to her mom, dismayed because she has a friend whose parents are lesbians.  The mom explains that this is problematic:

People have their own ideas about what is right and wrong – but what matters is how Jehovah feels.  He wants us to be happy and he knows how we can be happiest.  That’s why he invented marriage the way he did -- between one man and one woman. 

Jehovah created Adam and Eve, male and female. Then he said a man will stick to his wife… Jesus said the same thing. 

Jehovah’s standards haven’t changed.  It’s kind of like bringing something on a plane – what happens if someone tries to bring something on that isn’t allowed?

What a brilliant analogy!  Who you are attracted to is exactly like someone trying to bring a hand grenade onto an airplane.  Do go on, Creepy Cartoon Mom:

It’s the same with Jehovah! He wants us to be his friend, and live in paradise forever, but we have to follow his standards to get there.  To get there we have to leave some things behind – that means anything Jehovah doesn’t approve of...  People can change, that’s why we share his message.

Creepy Cartoon Girl then says she'll make sure to tell her friend's parents that Jehovah doesn't approve of their lifestyle, a development that Creepy Cartoon Mom pronounces "awesome."

Then we had a fundamentalist pastor in Tennessee who said that scientists are "abandoning Darwin" in favor of ghosts and UFOs, which (given that they live in the sky, sort of) are basically god.  As long as you squint your eyes and look at them really carefully.

In fact, Pastor Charles Lawson of the Temple Baptist Church of Knoxville has a great deal to say on the topic, following the general scheme of "if you're making up random shit, make up a lot of it":

Think about what I’m saying about aliens communicating with you. Aliens from above.  Something coming down from the skies and communicating with us here on this earth. A lot of scientists, a lot of them, and there’s really no way to know specifically because of political correctness and the pressure that’s put upon them.  A lot of scientists have abandoned Darwin, but because of fear of losing their jobs, fear of losing the ability to produce papers, uh, fear, peer pressure, they have to keep it in, and they don’t come out with it, but here and there some do.  They have abandoned Darwin.  They have abandoned evolution.

Yes, there's "no way to know specifically" because it's bullshit.  But that doesn't stop him for a moment:

Scientists have jettisoned Darwin and now they’re looking up, and past, and they’re getting into the spirit world, into the paranormal world.  And the two of them, they compliment each other, and they begin to get into something that their scientific books know nothing about...  You can get a Ph.D. from Harvard and not know one thing about a spirit.

And once again, there's a reason for that, but probably not the one Pastor Lawson is thinking of.

Finally, we have Mayor Tony Yarber of Jackson, Mississippi, who is recommending taking care of the abysmal conditions of roads in the city by... praying that the potholes will get filled.  Yarber tweeted:

Yes….I believe we can pray potholes away.  Moses prayed and a sea opened up. #iseeya #itrustHim #prayerworks

Some of the residents of Jackson were less than sanguine about the idea.  Glenn Garber responded:

Are you fucking kidding me?!  I have a better idea… Pay to have them filled!

Yarber responded, apparently in all seriousness:

We tried that.  So praying is the obvious alternative.

When days went by and lo, the potholes were not magically filled, one Jackson resident posted some doubts:

I thought he was going to pray for them to be fixed.  Did God deny his prayer?

Undaunted, Yarber responded:

Absolutely not.  I’m never denied.  Go to http://data.jacksonms.gov to see infrastructure plans.

Because evidently one of the mysterious ways in which god works is through filing road maintenance plans with the city council.  

Is it just me, or is god relying more on bureaucracy now than he did back in the good old create-loaves-and-fishes days?  When the multitudes came to Jesus to be fed, he didn't say, "And I hath filed a requisition with the Greater Judea Food Distribution Network, and thy loaves and fishes will be delivered three weeks from next Thursday, as hath been prophesied in the scriptures."

The Miracles of Christ (Aert van den Bossche, ca. 1500) [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So anyhow.  I'd like to think that these people aren't serious, but I'm very much afraid that they are.  Worse still, there is a good percentage of folks in the United States who read this kind of thing and say, "Hallelujah!" instead of doing what I did, which is guffawing.  I live in hope, however, that the more outrageous the claims from the fringe get, the more people will stop and say, "Okay, wait a moment.  That can't be true."

Or maybe not.  After all, this is the country where a majority of the citizens say that climate change is a "myth" while simultaneously believing that people do bad stuff because a woman created from a rib was given an apple by a talking snake.

The Soldiers of Christ Bill

In a time when partisan rhetoric, hate-mongering, misogyny, and xenophobia are the Flavors of the Month, the Mississippi House of Representatives just passed a bill that is horrifying even by comparison to what's come before.

House Bill 786, the "Mississippi Church Protection Act," makes it legal to kill someone if you do it while you're acting as a participant in a church service or as a place of worship's "security team."

Here's the relevant section of the bill:

The governing body of any church or place of worship may establish a security program by which designated members are authorized to carry firearms for the protection of the congregation of such church or place of worship, including resisting any unlawful attempt to kill a member(s) or attendee(s) of such church or place of worship, or to commit any felony upon any such member or attendee in the church or place of worship or in the immediate premises thereof.  Any church or place of worship that establishes a security program that meets the requirements of subsection (2) of this section and any participant of such security program shall be immune from civil liability for any action taken by a member of such security program, if such action occurs during the course and scope of the member's performance of their official duties as a member of the security program for the church or place of worship.

Does anyone else see the problem with this?  It's saying that an unregulated and untrained individual, simply by being a member of a church's "security team," is being given carte blanche to kill a person, based on their judgment regarding whether the person was committing a felony.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

If that doesn't freak you out sufficiently, maybe the fact that both the bill's supporters and detractors are calling it the "Soldiers of Christ Bill" will do the trick.

Matt Agorist, over at the Free Thought Project, stated it clearly:

By passing this bill, the state of Mississippi effectively recognizes churches as their own sovereign entities — mini-states that are tax-free and immune from their acts of violence carried out in their official duties.

Larry T. Decker, Executive Director of the Secular Coalition for America, concurs:

The "Mississippi Church of Protection Act" is well deserving of the title for "Worst State Bill."  This legislation would put "soldiers of God" above the law, allowing them to act as judge, jury, and executioner.  Religious institutions are already exempt from taxation, financial transparency, and many civil rights laws.  The Mississippi Church Protection Act would constitute an unprecedented and dangerous next step.  Belonging to a church should not afford anyone the same rights and protections as law enforcement.  This legislation emboldens extremists by creating a legal means for radical preachers to enlist their congregants into "God’s army."

Sean Tindell, one of the 85 Representatives who voted for the bill (33 voted against), disagreed.  He said, "The self-defense of these churches is a God-given right...  this legislation will protect the church body."

He did not comment on why churches should receive special protection via this act, and why the same claims couldn't be made for business, schools, and so on.

Interestingly, the Mississippi Police Chiefs' Association is strongly against the bill.  The MPCA's Executive Director, Ken Winter, said in an interview:

By effectively dismantling Mississippi's licensing system, this bill would block law enforcement who stop an armed suspect from confirming that he isn't a violent criminal, severely mentally ill or otherwise dangerous.  We just don't believe that it's a good idea for people to be carrying concealed weapons and not have participated in any training.

The whole thing reinforces the fact that there is a significant proportion of Americans who still think that churches should be above the law -- or, at least, not subject to the same laws the rest of us are.

It's high time we take a good hard look at the nationwide policy of treating churches as if they are nations-within-a-nation -- subject to their own rules, exempt from taxation, and largely protected by their own leaders from prosecution when laws are broken.  It's long overdue for "it's my religion" to stop being some kind of universal Get Out Of Jail Free card.  But unfortunately, with the passage of House Bill 786, we've taken a large step backwards into a time more like the Middle Ages -- when the religious authority and the secular authority were considered coequal.

And if you don't see where that can lead, you haven't studied enough history.

The bully pulpit

Bully (v.) -- to use superior strength or influence to intimidate someone who is in a weaker position of power, typically to force him or her to do what one wants.

There.  I just thought we could clarify that from the get-go, because there are evidently people who need a refresher on the definition of the word.  I'm thinking in particular of Buddy Smith, executive vice president of the American Family Association, who apparently doesn't get it -- especially the "superior strength or influence" part.

Smith showed evidence of his poor understanding of simple English words last week, because of a discrimination issue in (surprise!) Mississippi.  You probably have heard that a few weeks ago Mississippi governor Phil Bryant signed into law a bill that allowed business owners to refuse service to LGBT individuals on the basis of "freedom of religion" (prejudice and bigotry evidently being constitutionally protected rights, or something).  Well, besides the challenges that the bill will rightfully face in the courts, fair-minded shop owners came up with a tactic of their own; to tell LGBT individuals that they were welcome in their shops.  If other stores wanted to lose business, that was fine, but they were willing to serve anyone, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation.

So these stickers started to appear in business windows across the state:

Well, far be it from the American Family Association to take such a stance lying down.  Nosiree.  If you won't stand by us in discriminating against gays and lesbians, well... well...

You must be a bully.

I'm not making this up.  Smith said:

It’s not really a buying campaign, but it’s a bully campaign.  And it’s being carried out by radical homosexual activists who intend to trample the freedom of Christians to live according to the dictates of scripture. 

They don’t want to hear that homosexuality is sinful behavior — and they wish to silence Christians and the church who dare to believe this truth.

And as for the shopkeepers who put the stickers in their windows, Smith has the following to say: "If you do that, you are agreeing with these businesses that Christians no longer have the freedom to live out the dictates of their Christian faith and conscience."

Right.  Because selling a gay man a Snapple is exactly the same as saying that Christians have no right to live by the rules of their faith.

The choice of the word "bully" is especially trenchant in this context, because as a high school teacher, I see instances of bullying with sorry regularity.  And I can say that in my 27 year career, the single most bullied group of teenagers I have seen has been gays and lesbians.  Far from being (in the words of the definition) "(of) superior strength and influence," LGBT teens are picked on, discriminated against, and teased, and as a result have one of the highest rates of suicide attempts of any demographic in the United States.

Then there's the issue of the sticker campaign being an attempt to "trample the freedom of Christians."  The fact is, of course, is that no one is trying to tell Christians they have to be gay; what they're saying is that you can't discriminate against other people because they're gay.  Christians have every right to think that being gay is sinful, and that gays are going to be condemned to the fiery furnace to be tortured for all eternity by the God of Love.  Christians can choose to eat meat on Fridays, or not, or drink alcohol, or not, or get a divorce, or not.  Hell, they can decide that god wants them to superglue feathers to their face and cluck like a chicken all day if they want to.

What they are not allowed to do is to refuse service to people who choose not to cluck along with them.

What always gets me is that these people don't seem to have any sense that what they are doing is precisely the same thing that was done to African Americans by the Jim Crow laws, and in a previous generation, what was done to Chinese immigrants by the Chinese Exclusion Act.  Each time, there were demonstrations against the practice of legislating bigotry, and each time, the government finally caved in and halted it (at least by law; no one is under any illusion that it halted the prejudice itself).  The phrase "ending up on the wrong side of history" comes up frequently in these discussions, but people like Smith don't seem to see the parallels.

They are too busy fretting about what consenting adults do in their bedrooms than they are living by the words that Jesus said that even we atheists can agree on -- "Love thy neighbor as thyself," and "Judge not, that ye be not judged.  For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?  Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?  Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

Especially the "thou hypocrite" part, Mr. Smith.  Especially that part.

Despite all of this, I still have the feeling that in general, we're headed in the right direction as a nation.  At least this kind of thing is making the news; thirty years ago, no one would have even considered this newsworthy, and most LGBT people were still safely in the closet.

Thirty years before that, there were still widespread lynchings and beatings of African Americans in the Deep South.

Progress is incremental, and quicker in some places than in others.  But progress is still being made, despite the efforts of people like Buddy Smith and his pals in the American Family Association to turn the United States into a Christian version of Iran.  We are not a theocracy -- which means that each of you is free to follow whatever religion you want, or none at all.

Other than that -- as my dad used to say, your rights end where my nose begins.  And if you are open for business, you have no right to refuse me service based on my skin color, hair color, religion, ethnic origin -- or sexual orientation.