Own It
"Stampeding cattle... Through the Vatican!"
There aren’t a lot of good things I can say about the Ku
Klux Klan – except perhaps that they’re the people to talk to if you want tips
on what sort of bleach you should be using – but I really do have to applaud
them for at least owning up to the terrible things that they believe. Anybody
in 2014 who still puts on a uniform that represents 150 years of intolerance,
racism, and terrorism isn’t going to try and walk back their ideology to save
face.
Believe me, I’d much rather the KKK just not exist. But
since they do, I at least appreciate the fact that they’re up front with this
stuff so that everybody knows what they’re about.
I can’t say the same for Kansas’ Republican-controlled House
of Representatives, which has been hard at work safeguarding the principles of
limited government and fiscal conservatism by overwhelmingly approving a bill that
will allow any individual, group, or private business to refuse service to gay couples or individuals if “it would be
contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
This broadly written bill would make it legal for pretty
much any state employee – from a justice of the peace to a police officer – to
refuse service to gay people if they feel that rendering that service goes
against their religious beliefs. The bill would also make it legal for restaurants,
hotels, movie theaters, and just about any other business to deny service to
gay people, or even prevent them from entering the property, leaving them to
conduct their business at some separate (but presumably equal) institution.
If federal-level politics are the NFL, then state-level
politics is college football – everything there moves faster and is more
interesting because about half of the people in any given state legislature are
certifiably insane. That explains how
a bill legalizing discrimination and clearing the way for segregation got
passed in America in 2014.
The author of this bill is state Representative Charles Macheers, a self-proclaimed Reagan Republican with a degree from the
self-proclaimed second best law school in the country.* And nobody in the
Kansas House of Representatives is more concerned about discrimination than he
is.
*Rankings not compiled
by the dean of the school, on the other hand, are a little bit harsher.
Says Macheers, “Discrimination
is horrible. It’s hurtful … It has no place in civilized society, and that’s
precisely why we’re moving this bill. There have been times throughout history
where people have been persecuted for their religious beliefs because they were
unpopular. This bill provides a shield of protection for that.”
You see, Macheers’ bill, which makes it
legal to discriminate against any gay person purely on the basis of who they
want to have sex with, is actually intended to prevent discrimination against Christians, who as we all know are often
the target of considerable prejudice in this country, particularly in places
like the Midwest.
By making it legal for Christian
businesses to refuse service to gay customers without fear of being sued for
discrimination, Macheers’ bill supposedly aims to allow Christians to freely
practice their religion – a core tenet of which appears to be, “THOU SHALT NOT
UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES RECEIVE MONEY FROM GAY PEOPLE.”
The bill has drawn national attention, and Macheers has taken to the Internet to reassure everyone that
if any anti-gay discrimination happens as a result of this bill, it’ll be a
completely unintended side effect of his attempts to protect Christians in a
country with 44 consecutive Christian presidents and a paltry 477 Christians in
Congress.
Now, it goes without saying that
Charles Macheers and his buddies in the Kansas House are a bunch of old,
dimwitted crackers, at least a few of whom doubtless have a stack of carefully
hidden men’s fitness magazines in their attic. It also goes without saying that
if your religious convictions prevent you from doing business with a certain
group of people, you probably shouldn’t be in business in the first place.
But that’s not really what pisses me
off. What pisses me off is that in the face of rapidly growing support for LGBT
rights, conservative opponents are too chickenshit to even own up to what they're doing anymore.
Charles Macheers disguises his anti-gay
bill as a pro-Christian bill. A coalition of religious organizations files a
brief opposing gay marriage but insists that it is “False and offensive” to suggest that they are anti-gay. 13 conservative
groups urge the RNC not to drop its opposition to gay marriage but “Deeply regret the insinuation that we have
treated homosexuals unkindly personally,” even when three of the groups are
classified as anti-gay hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Here’s a hot tip, social conservatives:
If it really hurts your feelings that much when people call you a bunch of
crusty, ignorant old bigots, maybe you should quit trying to deny millions of
Americans rights that they’re guaranteed under the 14th Amendment.
You have every right to try and advance
your backward, prejudiced agenda, but you don’t get to have it both ways. Either
join us here at the “Marry Whoever You Want, It Doesn’t Matter” party or keep
fighting to have a 21st century democracy play by your idiotic
Biblical-era rules; you can’t act like you’re totally fine with gay people
so long as they aren’t getting their fag cooties all over the precious, totally
infallible institution of marriage. Nobody buys that line anymore.
The Ku Klux Klan’s brand of hate, while
equally despicable, is at least ideologically honest – they aren’t trying to
strike some moderate tone to avoid public backlash while quietly pushing the
same prejudice as before. They proudly, unabashedly believe the shitty things
that they believe, and while that’s not necessarily deserving of respect, I
wish all of this country’s other bigots would at least take notice.
Truman Ca-
Whoops! Hold the phone. Turns out the
KKK isn’t a racist group anymore; now they’re just a bunch of white guys who like to hang out and adopt local highways.
Truman Capps is still pretty happy that today's hate groups are less violent and more whiny.