Some lawmaker voted to bar his own child from being served at some restaurant someday. He just doesn't know it yet. Neither does the child, or maybe grandchild.
Somebody you know and love is either gay or will be when he or she grows up. Some wife in some supposedly happy marriage is looking at her loving, faithful and attentive husband and feeling sorry for him. She knows he deserves somebody who longs for him. At the same time, she wonders what real passion feels like.
As recently as 30 or so years ago, social norms made such cases seem rare. But as Frederick Douglass said long before, "The poet was as true to common sense as to poetry when he said, 'Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.'" The blow has been struck. Those who are no longer ashamed started saying so. Everyone who "came out" made it easier for the next. The rest of us see friends and family among them.
This "friends and family" effect is why we live in a country where suddenly six out of 10 people are OK with gay marriage. That's why a strong opponent of same-sex marriage can't get elected president. Because it doesn't matter what town you live in, what religion you practice, what church you go to or what laws you pass: Someday, somebody you love is going to love somebody you don't approve of. With enough conditioning and force, you might be able to keep that person from fulfilling those desires. But the rest of us aren't going to help you. We're not going to trouble our own house. And Wal-mart wants to do business with us -- all of us.
"Those people" are us.
That's why House Bill 1228, the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," got the reaction it did. The number of us who have kids, ex-wives, grandkids or good friends who aren't ashamed and whom we aren't ashamed of grows every day.
This bill only protects religious rights, we're told. It protects someone from being penalized for following his religious beliefs while conducting his business. That sounds familiar.
Not long ago, I wrote that a lot of people opposed to discrimination against gays wouldn't support a Fayetteville civil rights ordinance as drafted. It was too open to interpretation. It might stop some discrimination by some businesses but might also be misused. Supporters pushed the ordinance anyway. That caused a strong backlash. Now HB1228's supporters have gone and done exactly the same thing in the opposite direction.
And the world kept changing as if all this sound and fury never happened.
Somewhere, some father with tears in his eyes is telling his gay son that he can't approve of the son's lifestyle. He's telling that son who he loves very much that he's no longer welcome at home until he changes his ways. That father is going to pray on his knees tonight and ask his God why this cup cannot pass from him, and if this is really what God demands. Perhaps the father is named Abraham and the son is named Isaac.
Then that father is going to go to the bakery he owns on Monday and have two complete strangers come in and order a cake for a gay wedding. What's that poor man supposed to do?
What would Jesus do? He'd do unto others as he would have others do unto him. Jesus would bake the cake.
Nobody ever said being a Christian is supposed to be easy.
It's been a long time since I've darkened the door of a church, but I can't recall reading about a single time Jesus ever asked about sexual orientation before granting sight to the blind or curing paralysis. The loaves and the fishes went to everyone who was hungry. I do recall quite a few times Jesus was rebuked for associating with the kind of people "good people" wouldn't be seen with.
"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Matthew 5:34.
Then there's Luke 6:30 "Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again."
It's hard to be a light unto people you shun.
Doug Thompson is a political reporter and columnist for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].
Commentary on 04/04/2015