Tennessee's Hateful New Law

Tennessee’s governor just signed a law that prohibits any local government (towns, cities, counties, etc.) from passing any ordinance or regulation that gives rights to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered individuals. This appears to be in direct response to a Nashville ordinance that was recently passed that prohibited discrimination based upon sexual orientation, whether actual or perceived.

It makes me sad. Even more, it makes me tired all over.

There are those who claim to be for less government regulation and interference. They purport to proclaim greater rights for the local elected bodies to determine what is most appropriate for their community.

Yet they continue to promote laws, rules, regulations and constitutional amendments that attempt to impose the religious tyranny of a small group upon the entire population.

Polls show that the majority of people don’t believe in this restriction of rights.  The "silent majority" tend to be more inclusive than the vocal minority, but that same majority holds true to form and stands silently by and says nothing.

Even though I don’t live in Tennessee, this legislation affects me. It encourages the those extremely conservative individuals to continue imposing their brand of morality and judgment upon individuals who believe differently.

Let’s not even get into the “nature vs. nurture” thing or “choosing a lifestyle”. Let’s just talk about a basic, fundamental concept that many of us were brought up with.

Specifically, “Mind your own business”.

The rights which LGBT people want have nothing to do with your religiousity. Speak in tongues, handle snakes, say the Rosary or sacrifice a white chicken – it matters not to me as long as they don’t insist that I either participate or agree with them.  Conversely, I will not insist that they drink alcohol or marry someone of the same gender if they don't want to.  That is the epitome of freedom of choice.

Why then, do they feel that I must be converted to their specific ideology? The rights we are talking about are civil rights, based upon our form of government, and are supposed to be immune from the influence of any specific religion.

Yet those purporting to act continually cite the Christian Bible as the basis for their authority.

It is no more any of their business whom I live with or love than it is whether I have a religious ideology that agrees with yours, whether I go to church or temple or mosque or what God or Gods I worship, if any. Our country was founded on the premise of freedom of ideology – it therefore confounds me as to why so many people who claim to cherish those ideals seem so dead set on imposing their philosophy on other people who haven’t expressed even the slightest interest in hearing it, much less subscribing to it.

The result is that now in Tennessee, as in many other places in the United States, you can be fired or denied housing or discriminated against any number of ways if you are (or are perceived to be) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered. Regardless of your skills or abilities or anything else, you have none of the civil legal protections that are offered if you are African-American or Asian or female or physically challenged or virtually any other minority.

And this concept continues to grow throughout the land every day with the proposal of new laws and constitutional amendments that perpetually pigeonhole one group of people and deny them rights that are offered to every other citizen in this country.

It makes me sad to the very center of my being.

It’s not over, of course. Everyone will “Lawyer up” with challenges, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars determining who is right in the argument – money that could otherwise be spent housing the homeless or feeding the poor or just figuring out why the hell gas remains at $4.00 a gallon and oil companies continue to get monstrous tax breaks while reaping obscene profits.

It is exhausting to keep fighting. Unfortunately, it’s not a battle from which LGBT people can withdraw, any more than the Jews could withdraw from the persecution of the Nazi's in the 1930's, so the fight will continue.

What is the saddest, though, is that so many people – good, moral folks who do not believe that what is happening with legislation like this is right – stand idly by and say nothing. It may not seem to impact them, but eventually it will.

It will impact them first because someone they know is gay, although they may not realize it. Eventually, though, everyone will be confronted with a son, daughter, grandchild, or parent whom they realize is homosexual. With some, you’ll know because they’ve told you – or they couldn’t hide it if they tried.  With others, we'll find out eventually, because some action has been taken against them because they are LGBT.

Here’s why everyone should be concerned about this creeping invasion of the personal rights of LGBT people, though -- after the people who are encouraging the persecuting are done with the gay folks, they’re going to find another group to go after, whether it be people of color or the differently abled or Presbyterians or people with green eyes. Eventually, all of those people who stand by now and say nothing will find themselves confronted with the same “us vs. them” mindset, and they'll be one of the "thems" rather than an "us". 

Once the easy folks have been picked off, those who are obviously different because of their appearance or actions, the persecutors will look around for whom next to go after.

Because a bully without a victim loses power, and after having taken out the weakest victims, they will look for the next weakest and so on up the chain.

And when they get to those who stand by now and say nothing, those who would help speak up for those who are now standing silently by may already be gone.