Last month, there was an attack on Christianity.
No, I’m not talking about the tragedy in Kenya that took the lives of 147 students who refused to renounce their faith during a terrorist attack. I’m talking about the fact Indiana restaurants so mangled the Christian religion to the point that they’ve decided to stop serving people who don’t share their religious beliefs.
Indiana has decided that religious freedom gives them the right to refuse to serve LGBTQ+ customers, as well as religious minorities, and in some cases, racial minorities.
This is not religious freedom. This is oppression. It calls to mind the days of whites only restaurants and “no Irish need apply” signs.
Let me tell you a story about a man named Jesus. This is the man who sat with prostitutes, helped criminals and vagrants, who strong-armed a tax collector – basically the biblical version of a Communist during the Red Scare – into inviting him over for dinner.
This was a man who sought out those persecuted by and cast out of society and broke bread with them. Did Jesus ask if there were any homosexuals in the crowd before performing the miracle of the loaves and fish and feeding thousands of people? I think they would have written that down.
Do Indiana restaurant owners really think that Jesus would want them to turn away queer people? Jesus used sharing meals to share his word and chose to sit with them over the elite of the time.
The problem is not inherent in Christianity. It is in homophobes using their religion, the popular, mainstream religion, to oppress others. That is un-Christian, if not outright blasphemous. Using a religion whose main idea is “treat everyone like you want to be treated” to further an agenda of hate is offensive to say the least.
Making this a legal issue with an “anti-gay” law has caused an uproar on social media with many using the hashtag #BoycottIndiana, suggesting that those opposed to the new law and what it represents should refuse to do business with the state. Already, New York and other states have agreed to reduce trade with the union’s pariah.
There has been some talk of tolerance being a “two-way street” by Rick Santorum, who took this opportunity to shove his foot in his mouth once again. He suggests that when it comes to issues still being contested across the country, there needs to be an effort to respect “both sides.”
Frankly, that’s crap.
First, when it comes to tolerance, there is a one way street. There are the oppressed, who already have to tolerate or have been forced to assimilate to their oppressors’ beliefs and culture, and then there are the oppressors, who – having forced the oppressed to adapt to their beliefs – have to actively go out of their way to learn about and tolerate the oppressed.
Second, in the fight for equality, we are past tolerance, but we still have a long way to go. Although it’s now legal in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to marry a partner of the same sex, it’s also legal for your employer to fire you for being gay or transgender. “Trans Panic,” a disgusting term used to describe when a person is suspecting their partner to have genitals other than the ones they are in possession of, continues to be an accepted defense in the murders of transgender people. There are arguments over whether or not transgender people can use the preferred bathroom.
A law allowing people to discriminate based on gender or sexual orientation is not only dead against the example set by Jesus, it’s also a step back in the fight for civil rights.
Religious freedom is something that needs to be protected, especially with the rampant Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism that continues to exist in the United States. But a dominant religion and a political majority creating “religious freedom” laws for the sole purpose of discrimination does not protect any religion, only the religiously homophobic.
