Exactly right. And notice how conservatives keep making it be about cakes. They want the issue of gay rights to stay on a trivial level, because it gets harder to defend discrimination when you start talking about real businesses.
Trivialities are also good for distracting voters who might otherwise be asking tough questions. Questions like, golly gee, how do laws that make it easier for businesses to discriminate against LGBT help the average person…
find prosperous jobs
become educated without going into crushing debt
live in an environment that isn’t polluted with toxic substances
have access to medical care
have a safety net in case of tragedy and unemployment
not live in poverty during retirement or disabillty
be protected from unscrupulous and fraudulent business practices
be an active, engaged participant in our democracy
…in other words, progress? Why should anyone except bigoted cake makers care enough to defend and argue for this kind of “freedom”, when we have so many other problems to tackle that have a much greater effect on quality of life. There is no horde of cake-buying gays trying to scorch the Earth for this thing. And yet this issue–and similar trivialities–is what conservative discourse would lead you to believe is pressing and important. Not people going into bankruptcy because of medical bills. Not the rising cost of housing and its effects on the working poor.
Individual conservatives may sincerely believe in social progress, but all too often the issues consuming their attention have nothing to do with progress. It’s as if that is by design.
That’s one view. Another view is that a devout Christian could take to heart the message in the New Testament that everyone is a sinner, and thus, discriminating against gays while ignoring others goes against Matthew 7:1-3:
Also wrong, in many, many way. Firstly, there were no LGBT legal protections anywhere in the country until 1973, so your baseline is off by more than a decade. Secondly, federal law actively discriminated against gay people up until 2015, when DOMA was repealed. (And if you want to argue that DOMA didn’t represent discrimination against gays, fine - Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was federal law until 2010). Before Obergefell, thirty states had anti-gay discrimination enshrined in their constitutions - including California. LGBT rights in this country are very new, and very fragile. The fight against discriminatory state-level “bathroom bills” is ongoing - eighteen states currently have these laws on the books.
It’s absolutely not a slippery slope - it’s the entire reason this is an issue in the first place. If a baker can say, “I won’t sell him a cake because he’s gay,” why can’t a landlord say, “I won’t rent him an apartment because he’s gay?” Why can’t an employer say, “I won’t hire him because he’s gay?” The US legal system is based on precedent, and once you’ve set a precedent that religious beliefs can exempt you from following anti-discrimination laws, then that argument can be applied to any sector of the public. Many states have absolutely no legal protections for LGBT people. Two states, Tennessee and Arkansas, have actually made it illegal to pass non-discrimination laws protecting LGBT people. And yeah, people are still facing employment and housing discrimination for being gay.
The idea that Christians who are not bigots aren’t “real” Christians is absolute, utter horseshit. I’ve marched in gay rights rallies next to literal Dominican monks. If a guy who gives up all of his worldly possessions to dedicate his life in service to Christ isn’t “serious” about his faith, then nobody on this entire fucking planet is serious about their faith. The actual scriptural support for anti-gay discrimination is incredibly thin - the obsession among conservative Christians with gay people is purely a political invention.
And there are always going to be devout Christians who read their Bible, read what it says, and find no basis for discriminating against gay people there. And they are every bit as devout a Christian as Franklin fucking Graham. Christianity is not defined by its hatred of gay people, and it’s massively offensive to the millions of devout, non-bigot Christians out there to pretend like their faith is less because they believing in treating everyone fairly.
Even most conservatives don’t think unlimited discrimination in commercial endeavours is acceptable, but it’s always conservatives who want to draw the line really recently.
I think this is a bigger ideological difference than being for or against social progress.
Classically, conservatives aren’t against social progress at all, but rather are very skeptical of governments in general, and specifically opposed to expanding the government’s purview into things they consider out of scope for a government, and for private industry and private citizens to work out. Or for that matter, are just entirely out of the purview of the government, and view interventions in the name of progressive causes as a worse sin than what they’re trying to redress.
The cake baking is a good example- the conservative idea there is that the baker should be allowed to choose who he does business with, and in what way he chooses, based on the tenets of his religion. If he doesn’t agree with homosexuality, then he should be free to not do business with them, or to produce things that celebrate it.
The conservatives view governmental intervention to force the baker to make a gay cake as far worse than the alternative. It’s the idea that the government is intervening in a private affair and making the baker go against his personal choice and conscience that is the most offensive part to them.
Now a lot of latter day conservatives aren’t that nuanced, and are bigots and jerks, but the classical objection would be the one I described above.
I don’t think I did. If lawsuits about gay wedding cakes are a distraction from real problems, it isn’t conservatives who are creating the distraction.
How does suing a baker over a gay wedding cake further these goals?
There are some parallels to be drawn between gun control and the prohibition of alcohol, however. My understanding is that prohibition was seen as a “progressive” movement in the 20’s, targeted at protecting society from the ills of excessive alcohol consumption. Would a new prohibition movement be seen as progressive again today? People should have the right to not get run over by a drunk driver, in the same way that people have a right to not get shot.
One could argue that several “progressive” movements throughout history ultimately had a negative impact on society, despite the movements having goals aimed at improving society - prohibition, eugenics, communism, among others. I would assume that current conservatives are concerned that today’s progressive movements could similarly have negative outcomes (either intended or unintended).
This is what many people still don’t get. Homosexuality is not something you can agree or disagree with.
Saying “I don’t believe in homosexuality” is like saying “I don’t believe in being black.” Objecting to gays getting married is no different from objecting to blacks getting married – it’s denying them the same basic personhood that everyone deserves.
I have no idea, really, if the law should compel a baker who calls himself a devout Christian to bake a cake congratulating a gay couple on their marriage. But I don’t need the law to tell me that a baker who refuses on the basis of “not believing in homosexuality” is an asshole and a bigot.
Conservatives distract themselves from more socially important things when they use their time and energy defending wedding cake discrimination.
You may think progressives are distracting themselves the same way, but they aren’t because in addition to caring about the environment, social justice, healthcare access, etc., they also use their time and energy fighting discrimination at large. Not just wedding cake discrimination, but discrimination that can actually make people destitute.
I don’t know why you think it matters who initiated the baker lawsuit.
Bad word choice on my part; what I was trying to get at is that there are people out there who for whatever reason (usu. religious) will have no truck with various social things- unmarried people, gays, transgender people, etc…
And they’re bigots for sure, religious or not. But my point was that the classically conservative viewpoint would view the government intervention to compel the baker to bake the case as a cure that’s worse than the disease.
And that’s a reasonable viewpoint; not everyone out there holds that discrimination, racism and bigotry are the chief things that the government should concern itself with. They’re not going to dispute that those things are wrong, but will definitely disagree about their priority or necessity as far as things the government should be worrying about.
A progressive wouldn’t ask that question. They’d ask "What might result if we allow businesses to refuse service to people for being gay and what impact might that have on people’s access to things like employment, medical care, the democratic process, etc.
Thanks for not taking my strident reply as a personal insult!
Emphasis mine. I really like the way you phrase this. I truly hope that not everyone who disagrees with me on these issues is not an irredeemable bigot.
I’ve always objected to the idea that any desire is “who you are”, even a sexual desire. If I get a rush from stealing, I don’t even need the money, I just get a rush from it, is being a thief just “who I am?” No, I have a desire that I’m giving in to, that doesn’t mean it’s “who I am”.
I don’t think proponents of your statement understand just how profound the implications are for Christian adherents. It’s a kill shot. The only way to reconcile the statement with Christian belief is to argue that God creates some people with his thumb holding them down and saying, “Get up or you’re going to hell.” I can probably assume you don’t particularly care what kind of quandry it puts Christians in, but I’d just like to point out that it takes a shot at the reliability of the Bible, and by extension, the faith itself, and will always be met with pushback.
At least if they’re serious.
There are a lot of desires people have that they object to and turn from. You may want to rage on a driver who cuts you off, and maybe that happens a lot. You fight it, you don’t just say, “I’m a road rager, that’s just who I am.” Sexual desires are no different.
Would a church that refused to officiate a gay wedding run afoul of good Christian behavior? At what point is a Christian allowed to say, “This is sin, and instead of helping you celebrate it, I’m going to refuse to be a part of it”? From a Christian perspective, these people are consecrating their path to destruction. It belies a lack of understanding about Christian faith that the purported correct response is to help them celebrate the consecration.
Yes, sexual desires *are *different. Everyone is wired to seek love; some are just wired to seek it from different people. Homosexuality is not just some weird impulse that some people can control and others can’t.
Your equating a homosexual with someone who can’t control their impulses to steal or drive dangerously is, frankly, disgusting.
But you’re right – I don’t give a fuck about what the implications might be for some “Christian adherents,” especially since I know plenty of devout Christians (and Jews, FTR) who believe God’s love is broader, deeper and more inclusive than a couple of stray lines in the Bible.
Being a thief harms others. Being homosexual does not.
Frankly, if a baker won’t make a cake for a gay wedding because of their beliefs, then they shouldn’t make a cake for a second wedding, cakes for illegitimate children and the disabled. All of those are sins or abominations before the Lord according to the Bible.
I’m not saying they can’t control it, I’m saying they choose not to. They see no problem with it. And as a freedom-enjoying American, that’s their right. But I do not believe that desires are the same as characteristics determined by DNA.
As long as you avoid the whole “sin” subject, don’t ask why Jesus died, and eschew discussion of repentence, you can get along quite well in the world as a Christian.