It’s a pain to have to follow the law sometimes. What if we simply opt out of laws we don't like?
Arizona, the state that decided if a white person says you’re illegal than you become a suspect in the eyes of the law, may outdo itself by passing a bill that lets anyone with religious beliefs opt out of anti-discrimination laws. As of this writing, Arizona’s governor, Jan Brewer, hasn’t signed it, but even if she decides against it, I’m going to ridicule the law anyway.
A similar law almost passed a week ago in Kansas, until some conservative state senators woke up to the firestorm of opposition and, amazingly, listened to some of it. These were probably the same legislators who, for public relations reasons, moved to kill a bill that would have legalized spanking children with heavy farm equipment.
The basic idea behind the move to pass such legislation is that it’s wrong to expect Christians to obey the same laws that we would pass to make heathens behave. Sure, it’s good to have anti-discrimination laws to keep heathens from refusing to serve people who wear crosses in diners. Because heathens can’t be counted on to do what’s right. But Christians have moral law etched in their hearts, so they should be allowed to discriminate against anyone they like, including heathens, gays, Buddhists, alleged adulterers, cat owners and Jews, if they happen to disapprove of them on religious grounds.
It’s all because Christians, who make up the vast majority of the population and supply almost all the legislators who pass the anti-discrimination laws to begin with, are persecuted by being required to not persecute people.
The problem is that you can’t write a law that says Christians explicitly get a free pass from the law, because that would violate amendment numero uno, so the law has to grant the pass to anyone at all who has religious objections to serving anyone.
It would be awful if heathens took such a law as an excuse to discriminate en masse against Christians, wouldn’t it? Ha, but, you see, checkmate, because Christians are, as previously noted, the vast majority of the population. So that kind of discrimination would never be effective.
Oh sure, a bunch of heathens might band together to form a Heathentown in some little neighborhood of Phoenix. They could decorate their restaurants and apothecaries with their heathen art. They could practice their heathen ways openly in broad daylight in such an enclave, speaking their heathen tongue, and they could even bar non-heathens of their choice from sitting at their counters and sipping soup and eating crackers, according to this bill being contemplated.
But, so what? Christians, still the vast majority, could sip soup and eat crackers elsewhere, and there will always be plenty of elsewhere.
The only people who need protection from discrimination are the people of minorities, just because they’re the ones for whom there is no abundance of elsewhere. It’s just simple arithmetic.
What next, Arizona? A law to allow teachers to kick the children of same-sex couples out of their classrooms? How about a law that allows doctors in emergency rooms to let patients die if they don’t approve of their dress?
One thought I’ve had is that we could take a positive approach to the feelings of persecution that majorities have. For example, many heterosexuals are feeling helpless and disenfranchised by the number of laws cropping up around the country granting same-sex couples the right to marry. So what I’m suggesting is we could also pass laws everywhere precisely granting opposite-sex couples the right to marry. That way, they wouldn’t feel left out.
Similarly, there are really stupid people who feel that the military’s decision to let gay people die for our country has compromised their religious principles. So what we need is an explicit ruling from the president and the Joint Chiefs of Staff that clearly states stupid people who think their religious beliefs are compromised by gays serving in the military shall be permitted to serve in the military (as they always have).
And so forth, until they all figure it out.