Since the success of the gay marriage debate by the LBGT, religious communities have turned inwards to focus on fighting against the influence and influx of this movement and its members on their communities. This is, in itself a noble fight but it has a nefarious past and until that is honestly reckoned with it likely also has no future.
At the height of the gay marriage debate, many LGBT activists likened their struggle to interracial marriage. Anti-miscegenation laws once outlawed interracial marriage until the famous Loving vs Virginia case which would overturn these laws and allow interracial couples to marry henceforth. We may say this is a false analogy since the interracial marriage is still fundamentally the same as the mono-racial marriage —between a man and a woman. And according to those who support traditional marriage the only reason for governmental recognition, protection and privileging of marriage is due to the assumption of procreation. There is an incentive in the government getting ‘involved’ in these types of unions because they best protect the interest of children. On principle, I agree, there is no comparison between the struggle for gay marriage and the former struggle for interracial marriage. But that is on principle, without taking the unique historical context of the US into consideration.
When you look at the history of the US, the struggle for interracial marriage and the struggle for gay marriage do look the same. An “anti-miscegenation” senator of the time evoked religion —similar to the way it was evoked during the gay marriage debate, to support his position. He stated, “[There] is every reason to believe that miscegenation and amalgamation are sins of man in direct defiance to the will of God”. (1) Anti-miscegenation proponents also evoked biology, purity and societal interests to make their case.
This is likely one of the reasons Christians lost the debate on marriage, the hypocrisy was too evident and they had no means of (or interest in) truly reckoning with their disgraceful past. Now, as mentioned in the opening, Christians are fighting for their religious freedom —the right to not be compelled to do anything that would contradict their religious beliefs and ‘freedom of association’. One of the recent famed cases in this matter is that of the baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding. In principle, I do believe that as a Christian he should have the right not to bake a cake for a gay wedding. But for that to be the beginning and end of the conversation would ignore white Christians’ historical use of religion to discriminate against others, mainly Blacks.
According to segregationist readings of the Bible, black people were inferior to white people, cursed by God and naturally suited to manual labor. Requiring white employers to hire black people would violate these sincerely held religious convictions and threatened once again to destroy the settled racial order of the nation. (2)
Of course, Christians rebuke this ideology now but the similarities are glaring. Is the Baker acting on good faith, or is he simply “hiding” under the cloak of religion? It’s impossible to know.
Christianity has been used for hundreds of years by whites to reinforce their terrorism towards blacks; slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, anti-miscegenation, and segregation have all been supported under the cloak of Christianity. After a centuries-long history of utilizing religion for so much evil it is difficult (for some) to accept any cause by the Christian Right in good faith.
For the (white) Christian Right to ever have a moral argument they must reckon with the depth of their abuse and terrorism against blacks. If you want the ability to not make a cake based on your religious beliefs you must reckon with all the years in which services were denied to blacks on the very same basis.
Bishop William Meade (D. 1862) remarked concerning enslaved Africans,
Suppose, for example, that you have been punished for something you did not do, “is it not possible you may have done some other bad thing which was never discovered and that Almighty God, who saw you doing it, would not let you escape without punishment one time or another? And ought you not in such a case to give glory to Him, and be thankful that He would rather punish you in this life for your wickedness than destroy your souls for it in the next life?” (3)
It could be that this comment is better suited for today’s white Christians than it was for yesteryear’s black slaves. It is not my place to say what is a trial and what is a test from God, He knows best, but it would be unfortunate —even if only to learn from history, not to reckon with the historical injustice protected by (Christians use of) religion to understand it’s lack of authority in today’s society. And to comprehend the public’s hesitation to grant it’s practitioners any protections. The case of the Christian calling for the sanctity of marriage or freedom of association after using religion to ‘sanctify’ the aforementioned abuses is like the story of the boy who cried wolf; after a while, people will stop taking you seriously and assume ill-intent even when there isn’t one.
Support the blog!
______
Further Reading/ Sources:
- When ‘Religious Liberty’ Was Used To Justify Racism Instead Of Homophobia, https://thinkprogress.org/when-religious-liberty-was-used-to-justify-racism-instead-of-homophobia-67bc973c4042/
- Discriminating in the name of religion? Segregationists and slaveholders did it, too. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/12/05/discriminating-in-the-name-of-religion-segregationists-and-slaveholders-did-it-too/
- How Christian Slaveholders Used the Bible to Justify Slavery https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/
Recent Comments