Seg·re·ga·tion

-the action or state of setting someone or something apart from other people or things or being set apart.-

Senate Bill 101 is not the first of it's kind... Sadly, it won't be the last, most likely. I don't know of all the others, I recognize that I probably should. I have heard that some of the states that do, also have laws protecting the civil rights of the LGBTQ community. So here's the thing, I do not understand how people are backing the law.  I do not understand, how, as a Christian, a person can stand up and say that a group of people offends me to the point I am not going to serve them. I don't understand how people can't see that this is terrible.

I've read the bill, if I'm correct in deciphering the legalese of it, it states that the government cannot "substantially burden" (interfere) with an "entity" (individual, business, organization) for acting on their religious beliefs.  If the government does interfere it has to do so in the least oppressive way.  So that's what I got out of it. I could be wrong, but for the purposes of this blog that's the understanding I have.

So if my "religious beliefs" were that black people shouldn't marry white people... I am free to deny them my services?

We aren't talking about not baking a penis cake in a wedding cake shop. If your business doesn't bake penis cakes, well then you don't bake penis cakes. But if you make wedding cakes... Well that's what you do. You do that for customers.  If I sent my wedding planner in to you and s/he did not inform you that the cake was for a gay couple, how would you know? Does that prospect offend you? Will you have a contract that everyone initials stating that they are not gay?

The general response that I keep seeing on social media is, "they can go to the cake shop down the street.". Do people hear themselves when they say that...? You sound someone from before the civil rights movement!  Or like a present day bigot. The blacks, oh I mean gays, can go to the coffee shop down the street.  They have the same coffee there, what's the problem?

I've been told that segregation doesn't exist.  It does, we are overly familiar with it in reference to race, but the word in itself is not specific to race. It makes us sound bigoted when we say we are okay with separating the LGBTQ community, or any community really.  And let's, be fair, we are not okay with being bigots in public.

I recognize that I'm aware of this problem because of the recent media buzz, I'm not proud that I wasn't involved before that. I am not, I'm not going to be quiet about it. I'm not going to pretend it will go away. If we continue to use religion to put a barrier between those who believe what we believe and those who don't, we have missed the boat.

I don't have an intimate knowledge of other religions. But I know that Christ regularly broke bread with prostitutes and thieves. I know that He said to love your neighbor as yourself. This doesn't seem very loving...