If your Christianity requires discriminating against people, you're doing it wrong

You've likely heard the news that Arizona would like to pass a law that makes it okay to discriminate against anyone so long as one's reason for it begins with the seemingly innocent and perfectly sensible "my religion says those people are bad."

The manufactured bete noir of today is gay people. In past years, it was racial minorities (particularly African-Americans), recent immigrants (the Irish had it particularly bad) and of course, history's long-standing punching bag, women. But the times have changed. It has become more difficult to be openly anti-minority (secretly, of course, much still happens), so those who have an apparently hard-wired need to have an enemy had to find a new one, and the LGBT community's rising popularity and public presence made them the obvious target. But now they are targeted in the name of "religious freedom", and Arizona wants to institutionalize such bigotry with legal protection.

The law is a mess and a travesty. It is a terrible precedent of more far-reaching legalized discrimination: why not include Muslims, women who wear pants or don't have their head covered, people with tattoos, skateboarders, or evolutionary biologists and their evil minions?

But it's not the legality that bothers me as much as that this life-denying law is being wrapped up in the swaddling clothes of religious freedom. And let's be honest, "religious" in t his case means "Right Wing American-style Dominionist Christianity". The framers of this law would be, I am quite sure, appalled if a Muslim store owner refused to serve a straight Christian. It is being falsely touted as a non-discrimination law - because it *protects* the faithful from being forced by the state to serve people that one finds to be living a sinful lifestyle. Thinking that if you are not allowed to discriminate because of your faith, then the REAL victim is you is nothing more than puerile tantrum throwing, and a theology that is lacking both theo and -logy.

Sadly, this is not limited to the legislators of Arizona. I see it on facebook when a news outlet posts a story about another state legalizing gay marriage. Always this news is met with stomach-churningly numerous posts from the faithful wondering why THEY (the faithful warriors protecting God from everything) are now forced to be discriminated against because their prejudice is no longer the law. I get being upset if a law is passed that one disagrees with. I really do. But granting to someone a right that you already enjoy is not, in any way, a discrimination against you. To be told that you cannot discriminate is not discriminatory, and to claim that it is - in the name of Jesus - is an abuse of scripture.

Legalizing the discrimination of people - people who are citizens, taxpayers, voters, who work in the community, who own homes and spend money and love their families - is an abuse of God's sons and daughters, all of us who are made in God's image.

When I was born, many states in this country still had laws prohibiting interracial marriage or even interracial dating. A black woman holding hands with a white man could lead to police involvement. To say nothing of the abuse that could be heaped on a black man who would dare to hold hands with a white woman. I'm in an interracial relationship, one which is also international. It is so hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that early in my lifetime there were people who would have claimed my relationship an abomination against the Christian God. People who might very well have beaten me up or had me arrested in the name of the God of love to make sure I learned some kind of valuable lesson about, I don't know, Jesus' grace. Or maybe God's white-hot anger that can be assuaged only by the discrimination and abuse of people you don't like. I'm not really sure what their point is, because it is difficult for me, as a Jesus follower, to inhabit that mindset.

Our Gospel lesson on February 23 was from Jesus' sermon on the mount. The segment about loving your enemies, praying for them, turning the other cheek. Read it here: Matthew 5:38-48.

Some might say that, hey, the LGBT community should just turn the other cheek and live with this discrimination. It's not up to us not to hit you, it's up to you to let us hit you twice. It's not like there aren't plenty of other stores and restaurants and places that will happily accept their lifestyle and serve them.

But saying that is to say it from a position of power. As I said in my sermon this morning, that is an abuse of what Jesus said. One cannot tell the person one is abusing, "Turn the other cheek, Jesus said you have to, that's the rule." At least, one can't say that while remaining faithful to the Christ who walked to the cross offering only forgiveness to his tormentors.

It's the lie, the blatant lie, that bugs me that is being espoused by the self-professed uber-religious in enacting this law, that their concern is merely to to protect their ability to remain "pure" by not serving people they think are sinners. The only obvious telos to that thinking, though, is to serve no one. Good luck finding a customer base under that rubric. The concern also has nothing to do with faith, as though being gay is the only thing that is against the faith at this point in time. It simply has to do with a desire to hurt, to inflict pain, to deny basic human dignity to someone - anyone, please! - in order to feel superior and self-righteous. I wonder if those merchants who want to deny the LGBT community would also deny service to embezzlers, adulterers, spouse abusers, sexual harassers, thieves, people who don't feed the poor, or those who hear the cries of the oppressed and respond by making laws against audible lament.

7 things to know about Arizona's SB1062
Text of the bill, from Arizona's .gov website

addendum: I saw someone else post on Facebook on 2/25 wondering if the merchants/business that would discriminate against LGBT community realize that they are being protected by gay soldiers. That is a wonderful insight. And I add, they are likely being protected by at least some gay policemen/women and firefighters as well. They're certainly watching a lot of gay entertainers on TV. And I wonder, if they are willing to deny service to LGBT (or whatever group), are they willing to deny that service to military personnel that fit in that group? Are they willing to refuse the protection of gay soldiers, police, firefighters? Hmmmm.....