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rakumel · 11 months

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Today’s court decision and the others before it...well, I just had to vent my spleen. That’s pretty much all this is. There might be some cohesive arguments in there somewhere but...no, I’m pretty much just pissed.

Under the cut, of course.

The gay couple should have chosen another web designer, and the web designer should get into another fucking line of business that doesn't have to do with weddings, because you KNOW in this day and age there's a good chance you'll be approached by a gay couple.

....is what I would have said, at first. And it'll probably be what I say to my mostly conservative family and community, if pressed. I generally don't talk politics or religion with them, for the same reason we don't debate with howler monkeys.

But it's more than that. By escalating this all the way to the Supreme Court, this isn't just a simple matter of the first amendment rights of an artist or business owner. It doesn't even stop at someone having personal religious beliefs that they want to force on everyone else, which already goes too far.

No, this is a conservative court sending a message, on top of all the other messages they've sent over the past month. It says, basically, this is what we believe, and we're in charge, so fuck you. It is damn clear to anyone with half a brain that this is what the conservatives in power are doing. Why else would Justice Beerbro be shoehorned in, despite basically throwing a tantrum at his hearing? Not to mention Justice OfTrump being snuck in under the radar - was her hearing even televised??

But I'm getting off the point, which is: You can debate what this decision means and discuss the ramifications all you want. You can dress it up and photograph it from a flattering angle: oh no, it's not about religion, it's about free speech! It's not about hate, it's first amendment rights! But make no mistake: at its core, this decision is about naked hate for people that fall outside Christian acceptable behavior. Who don't conform to their definitions of socially acceptable people.

How do I know this? Because I grew up with them. Not the justices specifically, but I spent a significant portion of my teenage years in a Southern Baptist church. In other words, the staunchest of the staunch. The most rigidly religious, at least in theory. I'd go there every Sunday and listen to sermons in which "other" people were, at best, tut-tutted and frowned upon; at worst, they were responsible for Everything Wrong in This Country, and if we only had God in America again (whatever that means! because apparently having it on our money and in our public schools and a church on every fucking street corner isn’t enough!), then everything would be fine and dandy, except for the millions of people hurt by all of that, I guess. They latched onto those Bible verses that compared religious concepts with pieces of armor, because they loved nothing more than the idea of going into battle against an enemy, in which they were Clearly Right and the other was Clearly Wrong, except actual humans and the actual world are not that simply defined and never have been.

These people are desperate and borderline delusional. They believe that they are the victims of an evil world run by Satan, rather than a pluralistic society with multi-faceted people. They hate the concept and even the word compromise, despite that being the very thing this country and the Constitution were founded on (and we all know how they like to run their mouths about What the Founding Fathers Would Have Done). They think that the only way for them to exist in the world as it is, is to marginalize everyone else who makes them uncomfortable. Homeless people? Immigrants with nowhere to go? Don't care, just get them out of our sight, and don't spend any of our tax dollars on them either. Transgender people? Same-sex couples? Ew, extra gross, y'all shouldn't even exist.

By the way, no one has ever explained, to my satisfaction, why being gay is such a bad thing that the Christian God hates it. It's unnatural? So are cars, cooking food, and that Labradoodle you love so much, Karen. Try again. It's bad because God says so? You're not fucking listening, Chad. WHY. Why is it so bad? Point to the passage where God explains himself, not just the ones that say "It's bad." (And honey, we could have an entire other discussion about translations and cultural differences, but that's for another time.)

Because ultimately, this isn't about what God thinks. This is about what YOU think, Christian conservative. YOU, personally, think gay people are icky, so you're perfectly fine with anything or anyone that rules against them. God's just a handy construct to point to. Hey, God said they're bad, and I'm with him, so...sorry, hands tied. I have no choice but to be an asshole to you, either overtly or in a snide bless-your-heart kind of way, because Compromise is Bad, Co-existence is impossible, and besides, God said so.

Again, remember, they think they're in a battle, and rulings like this are a Victory in God's Name, A Triumph Over Evil. Not an insult and a pushback to literally millions of people, who over the years have had to fight bitterly for the same rights they got by default. Conservatives are trying, desperately, to drag the entire nation back to some mythological golden era, probably based on the 1950's, where genders and roles were clearly defined and almost never questioned, people who fell outside those norms just existed on the margins of society (if not flat-out beaten up for sport), and racial and ethnic minorities only held nice safe non-threatening jobs, like athletes or musicians, and not say, CEOs or congressmen. You know, anyone with influence or power to change laws or anything.

Rulings like this piss me off, because even if I personally am not targeted, I am not fucking going gentle into that so-called great America again. I do not want to live in a country where my worth is determined only by how well I can service a dude. I don't want to live in a country where millions of people who are otherwise law-abiding, contributing, upstanding members of society get smacked down every day by being told that this one, relatively inconsequential thing you are, invalidates everything else about you. It doesn't matter how good or smart or skilled you are otherwise, if you're this thing you can’t control, we hate you. I don't want to live in a country where someone feels the need to rub their religion in people's faces by offering a service where they know god damn well they might encounter a definition of marriage that doesn't fit their own.

Seriously. If you sincerely believe that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, then get a job that doesn't have anything to do with weddings. If you, personally, do not want to marry someone of the same gender, THEN DON'T. Literally no one is forcing you to. You, however, by escalating this shit all the way to the highest court in the land, ARE forcing other people to believe as you do. And that is exactly what you want. Don't fucking pretend it's about rights or free speech or anything else. You're not fucking fooling anyone.

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