In Jacksonville, Mississippi this week, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves shot down the most recent attack on civil and individual liberty perpetrated by the Christian right. House Bill 1523, signed by Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, sought to state “That marriage is only between a man and a woman; that sex should only take place in such a marriage; and that a person's gender is determined at birth and cannot be altered,” according to an article by Emily Wagster Pettus of the Associated Press.
While the bill was (rightfully) shot down as unconstitutional, the consistent and concerted effort by social conservatives to legislate their own twisted version of morality onto the people of the United States is every bit as alarming as it is predictable. In a nation where Christianity has been given so much special privilege, even in the face of constitutional limitations and separations, proponents of theocracy are confusing equality with persecution. In reality, they just aren’t getting every single thing they want anymore.
Governor Bryant exemplified this attitude when, after being lauded by the Family Research Council (a Christian lobbyist group) for signing the bill, he said that the “…secular, progressive world had decided they were going to pour their anger and their frustration…” upon his poor little head.
It boggles the mind that someone could consider him or herself a conservative, one who believes in individual liberty and limiting the power of the federal government, and still support egregious government intrusions into the personal lives of their fellow Americans like House Bill 1523. It is clear that Governor Bryant and supporters of 1523 and similar anti-LGBTQ bills and laws consider themselves warriors for the Christian cause, rather than public servants with obligations to protect the rights of their constituents. All of them. Even the ones their book told them they were obligated to hate. In their quest against secular tyranny, the have elected to install their own, invisible tyrant. A master against whom no slave could ever truly rebel. You can’t fight what isn’t there.
We must remember that morality is subjective at best. I stand by what is, in my opinion, a truly conservative ideal: that what one does with one’s own body is one’s own goddamned business, and neither preacher nor president, neither law nor strident political posturing can do a thing to change that. To my friends in the LGBTQ community (not that you need me to tell you this), you have a right to your life and body, not because of what people have written on parchment or paper, but because you are human beings, no matter what your opponents in the American legislature or elsewhere might tell you. And you have a right to speak freely, not because of our nation’s constitution, but because you have vocal chords that give you a voice. Use it often, and use it stridently. The social conservative armada certainly is, and will continue to do so until that ignorance has been drowned out by your embattled cry.
