The City of San Antonio is considering changing their nondiscrimination policy to extend its protections to sexual orientation and gender identity. Predictably, this has caused a bit of an local uproar, as the right-wing media have started churning out doomsday hysterics and outright lies. This week, we’ve seen local pastors rallying together to preserve Christian privilege and the right to impose Bronze Age sexual ethics on city employees, among others.
As per usual, Christians are claiming that they are being persecuted when the laws aren’t being written and enforced so as to propagate their ideas and provide them with an unfair advantage in the community. Consider the words of the Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the ironically named Liberty Counsel:
“This ordinance is not about preventing discrimination. It is about promoting an intolerant agenda directed at Christians, people of faith, and those who believe that homosexuality is contrary to the natural order. This ordinance will punish people because of their views on human sexuality. Everyone must wake up and realize the agenda behind this ordinance before it is too late.”
Of course, there are no punishments slated in the policy for believing that homosexuality is a mortal sin, just as there are no punishments for believing that Puerto Ricans (like myself) are stupid and lazy. You can be as hateful, sexist, and racist as you please so long as you don’t actually discriminate against people in “facilities or services offered to the general public by a place of public accommodation” or in housing.
I know that some of my friends and colleagues will argue (along with Rand Paul) that anti-discrimination is better handled over the long term by market forces, but I’m not seeing what the upside might be in waiting a generation or two for San Antonians to completely come around to the idea that LGBT people have equal rights. I would, of course, be interested in hearing from that side of the argument.
Your thoughts?
