Wishing a Merry Christmas–Kinda Sorta–to the Folks Chomping at the Bit to Discriminate Against Me

In the weeks that followed the bitterly contested presidential election last month, I contemplated weighing in via a blog post, but somehow it seemed that maybe too much had been said already. Maybe I was too overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all to unpack what I was thinking and feeling.

Yet, as I readied myself for the Christmas season, an article on my news feed grabbed my attention. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Mike Lee of Utah–emboldened by the gains of their party–are reintroducing the “First Amendment Defense Act.”

This is a nationalized version of a trend that has taken hold at the state level and has generated a series of boycotts, and counter-boycotts. The introductory paragraph of the bill actually comes across rather broadly, “Prohibits the federal government from taking discriminatory action against a person on the basis that such person believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that: (1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage”. Yet, generally, the warm and fuzzy spin put forth involves well-meaning kind but firm Christian bakers who catch heat from civil-rights entities when they refuse to make a cake for a same-sex wedding.

Even though as a gay Christian I have embraced a different kind of faith experience than these individuals, I am not entirely unsympathetic to their plight. Granted, I wish they would broaden their horizons and check out the resources out there exploring where gay believers are coming from, but I understand that rather wide segment of folks–especially in the Bible Belt–live by a more Fundamentalist take on Scripture. So, being asked to script the names of two grooms or two brides in icing does probably upset the apple cart for at least some of them.

Also, as I have discussed earlier, my husband and I are pretty middle-of-the road gays who actually spend most of our time in majority-straight social settings and are reasonably comfortable in our own skin. There are aspects of our lives that are pretty traditional, and we don’t always fit nice and neat labels in the kind of scene that interests us.

Recently, we took an early winter getaway to a lovely tourist community in the mountains of Georgia. We could tell by the number of mom and pop businesses with Jesus fish in the signage that there were some rather strong Evangelical pockets, and the vibe was conservative. In fact, I was curious about how this county voted, so I Googled their election results, and sure enough Trump received 84% of the ballots that were cast.

Yet, we were treated with the utmost measure of hospitality and warmth every place we went. The motel clerks were delightful and didn’t care about our sleeping arrangements. Every single shop, restaurant, and attraction rolled out the red carpet for us. (I am not getting into the specifics of where and what, as I fear the travel guide shout-outs would distract from the issue at hand, but suffice to say, it was all good.)

So, I don’t necessarily view the landscape as there being a war against gay customers on the part of small businesses in the rural South and Heartland. For the most part, I believe that the power of the marketplace and the value of consumer purchasing power often keeps things in check, especially given the growing importance of the tourism and travel segment of the economy throughout the country.

However, in the words of Pee Wee Herman, there is a “big but” here. My but is that I realize there are some people in this world who would choose to be unwelcoming even when it flies in the face of their economic self-interest. Back to the proposed legislation at hand, the supporters may be fixated on the whole cake thing, but to me, it seems pretty clear that the language allows folks to get a pass on discriminating against gay people in pretty much any transaction as long as the motivation can be deemed as religious.

Do I sound alarmist? Well, maybe my views are shaped by what my parents taught me. My late father was a school principal in rural Western Kentucky. In the early 1960’s, racial segregation and integration operated in a bizarre patchwork throughout the Bluegrass State. When my dad was traveling with the very recently integrated sports teams as a chaperone, some eateries would allow all of his students to come in and be seated for a meal, and others would not.

My dad wasn’t trying to make things racial or political, He just wanted to make sure that his school kids could get fed. Thanks to the United States Congress and LBJ–an imperfect leader but still a saint of history from how I see things–segregated public accommodations became illegal. Granted, I don’t think this meant that everything suddenly became hunky-dory as far as race relations, but it was a huge improvement.

I wasn’t alive when all this was happening, but I came along just a few years later. While my political engagement is indeed rather moderate, social justice is a value to which I try to hold dear. I don’t want to make the assertion that the experiences of blacks and gays are exactly the same; that would be arrogant of me to do so. Yet, I do think that there are some parallels in that in both cases we are told that there is  a “right” not to accommodate a particular segment of the public in business.

I don’t claim to be a perfect Christian or to have all the answers on moral or spiritual matters. Yet, isn’t hospitality–the search for a room at the inn–at the heart of the Christmas story itself? That’s not to say that there aren’t going to be some rough patches with this concept about which we may not always agree, Yet, is it Christ-like to enshrine a license to discriminate against a particular group?

So, I know that as a Christian I am supposed to love all of humanity. I don’t think that has to mean Hallmark card syrupy sweetness though. Honestly, there is a part of me that would really love to place lumps of coal in the stockings of Cruz and his ilk this holiday season. Yet, to borrow a phrase from the recent political season, I am resolved to try to go high when they go low.

So, I wish the anti-gay crowd a kinda-sorta Merry Christmas. I think this country is in for a rough few years on this and other fronts, but I am grateful to have love and joy in my life, and no one can take that away.