I often take the circuitous route to get to my point, but I
try to make the scenery pleasant along the way. So I do hope you, the great
known and unknown readers out there in the vast corridors of the interwebs, do
enjoy the picturesque, if sometimes convoluted, drive to my central proposition.
First a brief lesson on the First Amendment. Let’s look at
the actual text from the Bill of Rights:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and
to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The most crucial part for you to remember are the first five
words of this unalienable right. “Congress shall make no law . . .” I keep
hearing people blathering their support for Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy with
statements like, “Dan Cathy has the right to say whatever he wants. That is the
country we’re supposed to live in. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH?”
The Cathy supporters are correct in that Mr. Cathy is
absolutely authorized to say whatever he likes in any venue, on any subject,
and Mr. Cathy can be assured that Congress shall make no law prohibiting that
speech. Mr. Cathy will not be arrested for saying that he defends the biblical
definition of marriage. This is true.
However . . . what Mr. Cathy is not protected against is counter-speech
or counteractions that reject his notion. While he is perfectly within his
rights to say anything he wants, I am perfectly within my rights to say he’s a
douche nozzle. No one gets arrested.
Similarly, The Jim Henson Company is perfectly within their
rights to choose not to continue to do business with Chick-Fil-A. Anyone is
authorized under the law to choose not to give their consumer power to an
institution or business that will ultimately use some of those profits to
support an anti-gay agenda (or any agenda, for that matter). The opposite is
also true . . . anti-LGBT groups have
exercised their right to very publically boycott companies like Disney,
Microsoft, Apple, J.C. Penney, Old Navy,
Ikea, and Gap. Fair Play.
The point I’d like to get across is not a direct address to
Dan Cathy. Rather, I want to speak to the people who showed up to the Chick-Fil-A
Appreciation Day 2012.
Dudes, what are you doing?
Seriously, what are you doing?
No one can convince me that they went to Chick-Fil-A
yesterday to support a matter of free speech. No person’s right to free speech
has been violated. Instead of demonstrating your support for free speech, you’re
supporting the message Dan Cathy pontificated in the first place. The argument
that you’re totally fine with homosexuality, but you are against the trampling
of free speech is utterly fallacious and totally lost on me. I have a Ph.D. in
Bullshit. Don’t try to feed me that lie you’re telling yourself.
Like I said before, Evangelical and Conservative Christians
are absolutely within their rights to do this. To make a very public and
televised show of support to a company with whom their values align.
But my real question is this? Why are these your values? If
you identify yourself as a Christian, why would you demonstrate publically in
such a way that you know your numbers will hurt other people, that will cause
some excluded on-looker to see your face and see that your presence represents
a message that hurts a huge population of this world? Why do you take actions that
suggest a notion of supremacy over another person or group of people?
Because when I see you lined up around the block to stand in
solidarity with Mr. Cathy’s message, a message that implies that those in same-sex relationships are not valid, are not worthy, are not equal, my silly little imaginative
brain juxtaposes those images with black-and-white video reels of bible-abiding
Christians standing in solidarity with George Wallace as he shouts into a whiny
microphone “Segregation Now! Segregation Forever!”, their joyful expressions
and uproarious cheers demonstrating their unity. I see the snarled faces of young white men and
women, whose anger must be shielded by an entire squadron of United States
Servicemen just so nine students can go to their first day of high school in
Little Rock, Arkansas.
This is not what Jesus would do.
You tell me that the Bible tells you so, but the bible tells
us lots of things. Are you Christians or are you Biblists? Those who love
Christ, who choose to live their lives as Jesus lived his, cannot abide by the
destructive usage of scripture to justify hatred, discrimination, inequality, or
loathsome behavior against other human beings. It is not of God.
There is a dangerous history of this practice in the United
States. The hand-picked, noncontextualized passages in the Bible that admonish
homosexuality can easily be equated with passages used throughout the 19th
century in the United States to justify the existence and the continued
practice of the enslavement of millions of Africans and their American descendants.
Passages like these:
Psalm 123:2 (New International Version): As the eyes of
slaves look to the hand of their master, tas the eyes of a maid look to the
hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us
his mercy.
Ephesians 6:4-6: Fathers, do not exasperate your children;
instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, obey
your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just
as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye
is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.
Ephesians 6:5:Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect
and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
Ephesians 6:9:And masters, treat your slaves in the same
way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and
yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
Colossians 3:22:Slaves, obey your earthly masters in
everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their
favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
Colossians 4:1:Masters, provide your slaves with what is
right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
Titus 2:9:Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in
everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them,
1 Peter 2:18:Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with
all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those
who are harsh.
I've never been accused of being particularly conventional,
by any definition of the word, and the same can be said of my religious philosophy.
It’s based on a five word sentence one of my classmates delivered as part of an
oral interpretation exercise in an acting course. I forget the details of the
story: Lorenzo had been caught bullying some other kid, and his grandma
lectured him about kindness. The part that stuck with me, more than Lorenzo or
any other person in the class could have possibly known at the time, was a this
sentence, just five words, that rang more true than any other sermon or
religious text had ever before.
And Grandmamma said: “Son, God don’t like ugly.”
All of the confusing and contradictory information in the Bible
ceased to matter. I realized that ultimately, our toughest challenge is how
good we can be to one another on Earth, with all of the cards stacked against
us in a world mired in negativity. Can we take the raw materials we have on
Earth and try first and foremost to demonstrate goodness, kindness, compassion,
to perpetuate the service to others? Simply put, God don’t like ugly. And even
if you don’t believe in God, it doesn’t matter. Secular Humanism doesn’t like
ugly either. Lord Krishna don’t like ugly. No one likes ugly. And being the
person who stands behind religion, or politics, or business as a false platform
to just be ugly makes you ugly. Do you want to be the faces in the margins of
those historical moments, do you want your grandchildren to ask you: “What were
you doing there?” I would hope not. It’s an ugly place.
No comments:
Post a Comment