Faith is a gift, or perhaps a talent. Some people are much better at believing in things unseen than others. For them, the supernatural intelligence is as obvious as cosmic accounting is precise. They can feel the emanations of the shadows and find, in the warmth of the sun on their upturned faces, ample evidence of the love of God.
They don't need whatever evidence science might provide of something bigger. They feel in themselves the stirring of spirits, generations of marching saints, the inevitability of eternal being--the indestructibility of the human soul. They are willing to die for their faith because they have confidence they will share in the perfect world to come. They believe that what they do in this life matters, and that there are consequences for one's behavior that will resound forever. They insist they know God. Good for them.
Other people cannot obtain certainty. However much they want to believe, they find it impossible to leap open-hearted into the void. They have questions that they know are unanswerable by rational inquiry. The more they know, the less confident they are in their ability to genuinely know anything, much less the mind of God.
I do not know if, having been born one sort of person, it is possible to change into the other sort. I do not know if any outside agency exists to touch one's heart with grace. I do not doubt the sincerity or the urgency with which those granted genuine belief attempt their moral suasion--I only doubt the receptivity of those otherwise inclined. Most of us are susceptible only to a point. Credulity strains at a mullah's promise of virgins in the afterlife or a televangelist's insistence that God prefers millionaires to working stiffs. Or maybe it doesn't.
People can talk themselves into believing all sorts of things, that they are kind when they are cruel, that all crimes are fair when committed in the service of some ideology, that some human beings are somehow less human than themselves and therefore less deserving of legal protection and human affection. There's no doubt that some people believe in their own racial and/or ethnic superiority--that they are the best sort of American.
They are allowed to believe that.
Still, for what ought to be obvious reasons, it's dangerous for the state to privilege one set of religious beliefs over another. Even the hysterical fringe that worries Sharia law will become entrenched in the U.S. understands this. And since the next legislature or Congress or president mightn't be as congruent with our individual belief system as the current one, perhaps it's better if we're conservative with how much power we allow them over us. It's often better not to set precedent.
While there are those who will disingenuously claim that ours is a Christian Nation, the truth is our society--our world--is one of religious pluralism, and that even among mainstream Christian denominations there are stark areas of disagreement. That doesn't mean the law ought not concern itself with "morality," only that we need to understand that well-intended people can in good faith disagree.
If you believe your way is the only way, then maybe you can be forgiven your intolerance of heathens. After all, you could save us all if we would but attend to your wisdom. But civilization requires us to cede at least a little of our independence to the state in order that we might live together in relative peace. As sure as you might be that your peculiar brand of religion is the one true way, your right to believe as you believe does not license you to discriminate against those who do not share your beliefs.
Does this mean you have to provide service to everyone under every circumstance? Of course not; sometimes you might have a duty not to sell a weapon to an unstable person or a bottle of vodka to an obviously intoxicated person. You have the right to ask an unruly diner to leave your restaurant and to call the police to remove a trespasser.
But refusing service to someone on the basis of sexual orientation ought to be illegal, not something reserved as "a right" by the state.
You are free to believe that homosexuality is something other than a naturally occurring phenomenon, an immutable trait with which certain people are born. You are probably wrong about that, but you can believe it, just as people used to believe that left-handedness was a sinister attribute. You can believe that--despite all the problems the choice buys them--that some people might elect to identify as gay for reasons that have as much to do with politics or even fashion as compulsion. Some people might be able to reconstruct themselves as straight, just as some left-handed folks were trained to use their off hand. I don't know why that matters.
The real question some seem to be wrestling with is whether gay people ought to be treated like black folks and other ethnic minorities or as a second-rate species of American. Do we accord them the same dignity and courtesy we do everyone else who walks into our place of business, or are we allowed to use their existence as an opportunity to proclaim our moral superiority? That we're even entertaining such a question seems not just a failure of the legislature to maintain appropriate decorum and seriousness but a failure of human decency and a contravention of the example of Jesus Christ.
In a way, the politicians can be forgiven. They have to try to do something to justify their salaries, and if they didn't pass a passel of laws we might begin to believe we could get along without them meeting every year. A lot of them have constituents who haven't had the benefit of living in a world where gay folks aren't skittish novelties. We are not so far removed from the atrocities of Jim Crow that we can pretend to ethical infallibility. Fear and superstition still control a lot of people's lives. There are people who believe they literally wrestle with demons, that Evil has a human face.
It is fine that they believe that. It is their right. They may be right. No one ought to question the authenticity of their belief.
Belief cannot be legislated. Nor can love. Nor can the lack of love.
But we ought not pretend that ugliness is virtue, or grant boorishness legal standing.
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
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Editorial on 04/05/2015