An open letter to Indiana and Paula

I have made it a point over the years not to respond to letters sent to my blog.  Many are flattering and more than a few call me names that I probably deserve.  Some even spell those names correctly.

But yesterday I received a letter from a person (Paula) in Indiana who complained at my blog about her state. Let me quote from her note:

            “It is not right to pick on us here in Indiana. We are god people. Christians. We believe in America and in liberty. That is why our legislature and governor created the law that protects Christians like me from having to service those we do not agree with.”

Let me stop there and say, I understand you do not want to make a cake for a gay wedding or take pictures at their weddings. But you placed a shingle out front that said open for business. Now it reads open for business except for gays. (I use the word gay here to be inclusive of the entire LGBT community. Sorry if this is a violation of some weird rule.)  If you are a clinic, you are open for ALL sick people. If you are a gas station, you are open for all cars and drivers needed to refuel. If you are a pharmacist, you are in business to dispense medications prescribed by doctors to All people.

You do not get to decide who is acceptable to serve or not.

Let’s continue with her letter:

            “You people want to take over. (She assumes I am a member of the LGBT      community, which I am not.) Your acts disgust me and I want no part of them         in my business. I should have the right to refuse your business. I should have           the right to decide who I will work for and who I will refuse to work for.”

She makes a powerful argument.  If a band of ball-headed Nazis came in wanting a swastika on an all white cake, she or anyone else, could refuse them and none of us would think her wrong for her decision. But her decision would not be based on her religious beliefs, but rather on the hatred and bigotry of the Nazis, the very thing she is sharing to the world about the LGBT community.

But here is the rub. She based it on hiding behind her religion. Bigotry from the bible.

And that means that the next step could well be ‘I don’t want to serve Blacks. Or Hispanics. Or Texans. Or Democrats. Or Women. Or people with funny eyebrows. Or Muslims. Or people who are left-handed. Or anyone I goddamn well please to discriminate against, because I can claim religious persecution if you do not let me persecute those I hate with vile and vengeance.

Do you see the slippery slope we are on here? It is 1919 all over again. The lynchings have returned in the name of god-fearing white folk. Jim Crow laws have returned.  Hotels can place signs in their windows, No gays. No Negros. No basketball teams from Kentucky. All it takes is the belief that your little black book of Jewish Myths says it is okay. All it takes is your narrow mind to say my religion disagrees with you, therefore I am shutting you off from the commerce of this community.

Should we all drape ourselves in white hoods and march around singing “What a friend I have in Jesus?” Should we burn a few crosses in yards around the state to show these sickos we mean business with our anti-gay/anti-anybody we don’t like religion?

And here is the real dangerous part of all of this. The Official State Government of Indiana has just made all of this legal.

It would be one thing to say, “Hay, Mr. Gay Person, I would prefer not to bake cupcakes for your wedding, but I know another baker who will do you a super job, let me give you her name.” That would be a personal choice. But two problems arise from that. First, is that your state has made it law. And that changes everything. And second, there are those who can’t call another baker and get cupcakes somewhere else. The MD in and ER ward who has to treat HIV patients even thought he detests the gay lifestyle. The pharmacists filling an emergency contraceptive prescription when he doesn’t believe in birth control. The public school teacher with a gay student in her class. This list goes on and on. Who gets to say yes and who gets to say no?

Your state just made it legal to turn your backs on people just because your tiny little notion of your wrathful, angry god is disturbed by a lifestyle, a color or a creed.

That, by definition is discrimination.

So don’t write me letters crying over Christian spilled milk. I know what Christ taught. And it is nothing like you are practicing. And because of that, you can go to hell.