Welcome back to Alec Pavlik goes on the conservative-libertarian side of things once again. Recently the reintroduction of legislation called the “First Amendment Defense Act” has been getting a lot of hate from liberal media. This act would prohibit the federal government from discriminating against those with moral beliefs such as; “(1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.” So with that “LGBTQ” groups (and I’ll just add ABPH now in case they decide to throw those initials on later) have predictably labeled this act another “anti-gay” bill. And with THAT I’m here to not only dissect the meaning and outcome this legislation would bring, but why the battle of “discrimination” will only end in more discrimination.
Ever since the Civil Rights Act we’ve been caught in a spiral of outlawing opinion in the work place. Although racism is a horrible and really illogical thing, when you let the government start telling employers what opinions they are aloud to act on; sooner or later it’ll come back to haunt you. Outlawing discrimination in return outlaws the public exorcise of opinion, and it’s up to those who define “discrimination” to choose who comes out on top. According to the Supreme Court verdict on same-sex marriage they said states denying marriage licenses was unconstitutional. The same-sex marriage ruling wasn’t the passing of a law, it was interpreting previous law. Therefore if you agree with the Supreme Court you believe that American law always protected the liberal interpretation of gay-rights since the beginning (so there’s another moral question for those who burn the flag of freedom). Many who disagreed with this felt discriminated against, because their religious opinion was now considered illegal if their business was linked to anything about weddings. Whoever is defining discrimination is now the one who decides whether marriage issues are discrimination against homosexuals or discrimination against believers in traditional doctrine. This new act never states that it is allowing discrimination, but instead prohibiting it. Therefore without this act it is assumed liberal opposition wish to discriminate against those who disagree with same-sex marriage, however if this passes it would contradict previous federal actions that prohibit discrimination against homosexuality. We’ve gotten ourselves in a place where we don’t need to be, and it’s all because we yet again aloud the government to get involved.
Unlike liberal legislation however, the First Amendment Defense Act does not state anything about prohibiting discrimination in businesses or public. Very specifically it states, “Prohibits the federal government from taking discriminatory action..” Therefore unlike others who attempt to force religious people to cater weddings and states to adopt their opinion, this legislation only applies to the federal government (at least according to the text from previous introductions of the First Amendment Defense Act which are available online). It seems like the things it was meant to prohibit are mostly tax and welfare related discrimination, such as removing church’s tax exemption for denying same-sex weddings. The First Amendment Defense Act upholds the exactly purpose of the First Amendment which is, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” This act does not target or promote any religion specifically, but instead ensures that other branches of the federal government cannot penalizing people for a currently controversial opinion. This is quite obviously not written to defend people’s political beliefs, but their personal stances on moral issues. Since the majority of people who believe “sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage” do not believe there should be legal action outlawing sex outside of marriage. People in opposition to this legislation will still argue that this act is discriminatory and establishes a religious opinion being that discrimination against these religious beliefs is wrong; but that argument only makes me question why liberal legislation is not considered the same thing? Are you not establishing your own religious opinion by saying places of worship lose their tax exemption if they don’t match your opinion?
What I would like to see is people respecting each other’s differences and promoting good values instead of legal ways to sue each other. Although I believe the First Amendment Defense Act could only be used to sue the government, there would be no need for it if we weren’t always trying to ban offensive opinions. Either we can keep creating pages of text outlawing every form of discrimination for local to federal governments, or we can just say, “Screw it, the government doesn’t belong here in the first place.” You can hate me, I can hate you, you can love me, I can love you, you can deny me service from your store for any reason you want, I can block you from my blog for any reason I want, you can tell people not to read my blog, I can tell people not to shop at your store, neither of our opinions have to be a crime. Just get the government out of the people’s philosophy and we wouldn’t have to worry about any form of federal discrimination. If your beliefs are truly right then you don’t need the government to help you win over the majority. Let the majority decide who they want to be, and if you can’t tolerate those opinions even though there are no laws suppressing your own, then there’s a couple hundred other places that you might take a cultural liking to.
Lucky those not swayed by the ever-so-bias media have come to the conclusion that this act wouldn’t really affect homosexuals at all. While places that say they represent the LGBT community are openly calling the First Amendment Defense Act “anti-gay”, there has been a divide online where some homosexuals are coming out in defense of “Christians’ First Amendment Rights.” Tweet of the day being, “I respect Christians’ 1st Amendment religious rights. They respect my right to not be thrown off a building.” From @ScottPresler