“We don’t serve your kind”

Everywhere you found it, in Nazi Germany, in the Jim Crow laws of the old south, in the disgraceful history of the British Raj in India, laws and policies that discriminated against subclasses of human beings never aged well. Sooner or later they became grainy black and white photos in history books exposing the worst of who we used to be. It is never a good idea to marginalise anyone, particularly when the organising principle behind that marginalisation is religious or ideological.

So when the US Supreme Court ruled on Friday that a Colorado civil rights law, which compels businesses and organisations to treat same-sex couples equally, is in violation of the right to free speech, they dealt a major blow to LGBTQ+ rights. In effect they said it’s okay once more to, metaphorically speaking, hang a sign in your shop window that says, “We don’t serve your kind.” It’s okay, they’re saying, particularly when it squares with the religious faiths of the six conservative justices responsible for this repellant vote.

The case in question was brought by Lorie Smith, the owner of “303 Creative,” a web design company. Smith said she wanted to begin offering wedding websites, but did not want to make wedding websites for gay couples because of her religious belief. Her “religious belief,” by the way, is Christian. Ten dollars American says these six conservative justices wouldn’t have given her the time of day had she been a Muslim.

As a former evangelical myself I understand what’s going on here. The idea that homosexuality is a “sin” is taught relentlessly and shamelessly in many Christian churches today, and it has spawned endemic, anti-gay bigotry, particularly inside the evangelical community.

This expression of rank intolerance is sugar-coated with the bromide that the individual evangelicals promoting it “hate the sin but love the sinner.” Being gay, they insist, is a choice and not a congenital sexual preference. It is buttressed by the belief that it is a sinful choice, and the “sinner” in question can stop it at any time.

Evangelicals employ seven biblical texts to justify their intolerance of gays. In so doing they have isolated homosexuality and ignored other traits and tendencies similarly condemned by the Bible. Which brings me to a point that I must confess, brothers and sisters, concerning myself.

According to the Bible, I am a sinner. The sin I practice, — one I do not regard as a choice but an inborn proclivity — is condemned in the Bible not 7 times but 25 times. You see, my friends, I am an unregenerate left hander, and I can assure you with complete confidence and self knowledge that I have been left handed for as long as I can remember. I never chose left handedness, it most resolutely chose me.

My sinister fellow-travellers, the roughly ten percent of the population cursed with a paw that is stubbornly south, understand my plight. Ours is a hostile, right-handed world of scissors and power tools designed for our privileged manus dextra counterparts. We have a diminished practical place in such a world, so it’s hardly surprising that the Bible should find us even more repugnant than gays. Three and a half times more, if the ratio of 25 to 7 is a measure.

I think my point is made and I won’t harp on it. I will just say this to Ms Smith. If you find my left handedness repellent because of what the Bible has to say about it I would advise you not to practise it. I strongly urge you to continue throwing, catching and eating with your right hand. But should I need a website I am sure you will have no trouble with my left-handed ways. Fair enough?

Similarly, Ms Smith, if you want to fall in love and marry someone of the opposite sex I heartily encourage you to do that as well. There’s no need for you to turn lesbian if you aren’t lesbian. But I would also expect your personal proclivities to stay the hell out of other people’s business. Leave left handed people and gay people alone. If God disapproves of us you can leave it to him to deal with us in his own good time. Again: stay the hell out of it.

To those members of the Supreme Court of the United States who need to hear it I have only this to say. Keep your religion out of our policies. Your job is to “faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon [you] … under the Constitution and laws of the United States.” In other words, do your damned job, and stop taking our freedoms away in the name of your superstitions. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.