It Is Not About Religion

This essay began as a comment on something I shared on Facebook, regarding the Arizona Legislature passing their SB 1062, aka the "Hate the Gay Away" Amendment. The bill "protects" individuals' rights to refuse service to people they deem objectionable on religious grounds (mostly gays, but the bill would allow businesses to deny others as well). As I write this, SB 1062 has been passed by the Arizona legislature on nearly party-line votes (I think a couple of GOP State Senators voted with Democrats to oppose the bill) and is waiting for Governor Brewer to sign it.

I'm usually wary of comparisons to Nazis, but this one seems inevitable. Quite simply, how do you tell that someone is gay? Is it a "Good morning, welcome to McDonald's, are you gay?" sort of thing? Is a man holding hands with a another man gay? Because that makes President Bush gay. Or how about kissing; except Russians do same-sex kissing as a way of saying hello and I'm pretty sure they're mostly not gay. So, how do you tell? Or is it when someone feels uncomfortable around people who act and dress a little different than he or she, that we get to treat them differently?

The Nazis, after working to persuade people that Jews were a inferior and malevolent species realized that it was hard telling them apart from other Germans, so they made up "Jew Codes" and made Jews wear yellow stars on their clothes, which they billed them for by the way. I wonder how the Arizona legislature proposes to tell who is gay and who isn't, and do they plan to charge them for the honor of being singled out?

But all that deals with the practicalities of the bill. Let's get to the really important question, what is wrong with being gay? Some people insist that it violates their religious beliefs. Fine, if you believe that then don't be gay. But we have this thing in the United States called the First Amendment, and within that, called the "Establishment Clause," that says the government can make no laws regarding the establishment of religion. In other words, behaviors that are proscribed solely on religious grounds cannot be banned by government laws. If you were Catholic in the 1950s and couldn't eat meat on Fridays, it didn't mean your Protestant friends had to give up their hamburgers. It had to do with Catholic beliefs, and there was no compelling public good to be achieved by mandating meatless Friday; or harm to be avoided.

In the early 1960s, a future Georgia governor named Lester Maddox demanded that he, as a private businessman and restaurant owner, had a right to refuse service to anyone he wanted. Of course that meant black people back then. To emphasize the point, Maddox offered pickaxe handles to white patrons who wanted to help him refuse service. The federal government's point of view was that a person entering a business that was open to the public had an expectation and right to the same services as any other patron, as long as they weren't doing anything against the law or -- within reason -- disturbing other patrons (the fed maintained that just being there was not -- within reason -- disturbing). Interestingly, this is the same argument that gun rights advocates use when they pack heat in Starbucks and other public businesses.

I'm a straight guy, why do I care? Because liberty isn't divisible. This bill, which is billed as protecting religious freedoms, does nothing but mock and undercut them. It empowers individuals to deny services to people on the purely subjective basis of not liking something about them. Wrap it in religious language all you want, but we in the United States have settled law that says that is bunk. Can I refuse to serve people who aren't dressed for church on Sunday, on the grounds that they disrespect the Lord's day? How about refusing someone wearing a yarmulke? How about someone wearing a gun? Am I allowed to refuse someone sporting a Confederate flag on his T-shirt because I object to celebrating treason against my country?

As I noted, SB 1062 is on Governor Brewer's desk for signature. She is under intense pressure from the business community to veto it. Tourism dollars and things like the Superbowl hang in the balance. Tweeting your opinions to @NFL and @NBC about holding the Superbowl in a state that sanctions hypocrisy and hate would add clarity to her decision.