When John F. Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act proposed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to ensure black Americans could exercise their right to vote, was he discriminating against people of color?
When Barack Obama told Americans he believed marriage was between a man and a woman, was he a bigot?
When Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, cast the only vote against the United States' entering World War II, did that make her a supporter of Japan's atrocities and Hitler's extermination of Jewish people?
Maybe, just maybe, their opposition on those matters can't be explained away so easily. Maybe their stances were far more complicated than that. Is that possible? Can someone oppose legislation that has all the good intentions in the world based on reasonable and legitimate concerns?
In 2013, not long after the awful murder spree at Sandy Hook Elementary, the U.S. Senate rejected an amendment to expand background checks on gun buyers. It was supported by most Democrats, but one of the key votes against the measure came from Democratic U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. Did that mean she likes the idea of someone gunning down first-graders? Not at all. She believed the focus should be on mental health, more accurate and detailed reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check system and applying existing laws more aggressively.
Arkansas has just come through a vicious U.S. Senate campaign in which we were bombarded constantly with 30-second television commercials that boiled complex issues down to slogans and oversimplifications. Tom Cotton succeeded in part because it was far easier to package "Pryor loves Obama" than it was to explore Pryor's nuanced explanations of how Obamacare is helping Arkansans.
In Fayetteville, where voters on Dec. 9 will consider whether to accept the City Council's adoption of an anti-discrimination ordinance, backers of the ordinance want voters to see a only two choices: Vote against repeal and preserve "fairness" in Fayetteville, or vote for repeal and give in to bigotry.
The Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, which is a private organization representing dues-paying members of the business community, sparked heavy criticism from supporters of the ordinance when its board voted unanimously to support repeal of the ordinance. This development is very frustrating to the effort to keep voters' choice on Election Day simple.
It is harder to persuade the public that all opposition is based on bigotry and lack of compassion when men and women normally at the forefront of positive change in the community announce they support repeal of the ordinance. These are community leaders folks like Mayor Lioneld Jordan and University of Arkansas Chancellor G. David Gearhart typically rub elbows with, people they praise for their contributions to the greater good.
Those two men criticized the chamber, which Jordan believed was the right organization lead the city's economic development efforts. Gearhart, whose campus will not fall under the law's restrictions, says if the law is too broad and vague, "the court system of Arkansas will clarify the law in due course."
The university may find a "pass it first, clean up the mess later" approach works in academia, but passing a broad and vague law with the goal of letting the courts figure it out isn't good government. There's no Nancy Pelosi-like need to pass the law so we can find out what's in it.
But back to the chamber. Its membership of local business leaders is harder to cast as haters and villains than individual critics of the law. Maybe that's why Jordan and Gearhart want the chamber to back off its stance.
The ordinance is a complex piece of legislation originally drafted by a national organization focused on achieving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. The City Council rushed it through more quickly than some rezoning decisions. Unlike other ordinances, it was not referred to any committees for the hard work of crafting an ordinance specific to Fayetteville's needs, or any evaluation of its impact on the business community or the community as a whole. It is vague where specifics are needed. It will be difficult, and likely costly, for businesses to even discern what might be considered illegal under the ordinance.
But supporters of the ordinance view it simply: Backing the ordinance is support for equality. Voting to repeal it is a desire to keep minorities downtrodden.
As with so much in life, it's not that simple. Simple isn't a four-page, two-column ordinance.
It's not easy to find on the city's web site, but I encourage those who plan to vote to at least read the ordinance. Apologies for the long URL, but it can be found at http://www.accessfayetteville.org/government/mayor/news/Chapter_119_Civil_Rights_Ordinance.cfm.
GREG HARTON IS OPINION PAGE EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
Commentary on 11/17/2014