“Ain’t nothing wrong with being gay; everyone’s a little gay.”
~ Honey Boo Boo ~
I guess you could say that socially, I was a late bloomer. It didn’t help that I grew up in the sticks of New Hampshire, a forty-minute drive to the nearest grocery store or the closest Walmart. We were so isolated that the latest trends and pop culture didn’t reach us until about two years after they’d expired everywhere else in the world. My town was too small to have its own high school, so I attended a large regional public school slightly farther away than Walmart. As a student there, I was stuck in that tragic phase of possessing both acne and the social skills of a young adult still watching Nick Jr. I certainly wasn’t a loser—most people knew who I was and didn’t retch at the sight of me. But my general awkwardness never allowed me to make it anywhere near the top of the social ladder. So for four years, I was basically a dorky rat, scurrying through the halls, trying to avoid situations where I might be forced to interact with members of “the Pit.”
The Pit was a coed, off-brand version of the Queen Bees from Mean Girls. Think Regina George but with flannel, less hair product, and the noxious reek of patchouli. So basically the opposite of Regina George—but nonetheless these stoner kids ruled our school.
Our high school had an indoor atrium full of tables where students could hang out, socialize, and (not really) study. It was the place where our status hierarchy was most evident and would have made a great subject for an anthropology dissertation.
The table where the cool kids sat was in an area that was sunk about two feet into the floor. The group was known as the Pit, and it was understood that no one else was allowed at their table. Woe unto the miserable worm who crossed into that forbidden territory! When we B-listers walked by the Pit, we usually followed standard protocol: Look down at your feet like they hold the secrets of life everlasting, avoid all eye contact, and pray they don’t notice your brown-bagged egg salad lunch, packed by your mommy.
I avoided speaking at length to any members of the Pit for the first few years of high school. Sure, I had an occasional class with some of them, but there was never much interaction. They mostly left me alone, and I knew to stay out of their way. Senior year, though, I got to know one of them—we’ll call him Greg—when we were paired as partners for a project in a history class.
I discovered Greg was pretty funny, and we became friends. A few weeks in, we met up to work on the project during a period when students were allowed to leave campus. We worked for thirty minutes or so at his house and then took a break. It was a sunny day, and Greg led me to his deck. He brought this huge, red bong out with us and fired it right up. I had seen people smoking before, and I knew Greg was a stoner, so I wasn’t exactly shocked.
After letting loose a cloud the size of a beach ball, he leaned his head toward me and croaked like the big, snack-happy toad from Pan’s Labyrinth, “Wanna take a hit from Big Red?”
In that moment I decided that I wanted to be a badass. Maybe it was because I’d been in a fight with my mom that week, and I knew she wouldn’t have approved. Maybe it was seeing Greg, sitting on the deck, wearing aviators and clearly taking this bud like a champ. Maybe it was the allure of doing something illegal. Regardless, I decided to go for it.
After I finished coughing, it was time to drive back to school for my physics class (nothing like weed to prime you for some velocity and vector talk). Greg and I parted ways, and as I walked through the hallway I couldn’t help but feel smug; I, Kristin Tate, had just smoked weed with a member of the Pit. Did this make me an official Pit girl? Probably not, but at least it was a start.
I had almost made it to physics when I began feeling uneasy. My mind started racing and I couldn’t get it to stop. I couldn’t go to class—not now—so I dipped into the closest bathroom. That was when the paranoia set in. What if my mom found out? I would be grounded for months. What if my physics teacher smelled the weed and reported me? I’d get suspended or worse—they’d call the cops and haul me off to jail. Why was I freaking out? This couldn’t be normal. The weed must have been laced with something. Maybe Greg did it when I wasn’t looking. Maybe it was all an elaborate joke because I wasn’t cool enough to be in the Pit and now I was about to die from a heart attack in a high school bathroom before I had the chance to grow up, graduate, and marry Johnny Depp (which seemed more feasible than ever in my stoner’s haze).
Everything started spinning. I felt like I couldn’t even stand up. There was only one thing I could do.
I hobbled to the school nurse and blurted out what I had done: I had smoked weed, and I was really, really sorry. It was a veritable gold medal performance in the Apology Olympics. I begged her to check everything: my blood pressure, my temperature, and anything else she had an instrument for. After she concluded that I was not, in fact, dying, I felt a wave of relief. Nobody would have to come up with an epitaph for my tombstone yet. (Kristin—too exquisite for this world… but couldn’t say no to drugs.) But then it hit me that I had just turned myself in. Was she going to call the police?
Long story short: The cops were not called, but my parents were. I was grounded, and the school punished me by not allowing me to leave campus for a few months. I had disappointed everyone: my mom, the nurse, the principal, and even myself, a little. But at least I hadn’t died or been arrested.
I haven’t smoked weed since. But looking back, I realize that I probably never would have smoked that day if marijuana had been legal. Hell, maybe the Pit kids wouldn’t have either! The fact that it was forbidden gave it this elite, hardcore status. You had to rebel in this manner to be a member of the Pit—to be cool.
Weed was so mysterious to me. I didn’t know how it was supposed to make me feel, who Greg bought it from, or why it was so bad. I just knew I wasn’t allowed to do it, which made rebellious, teenaged me (and so many others) want to do it. I’d entered some august company when it came to succumbing to the allure of the forbidden: Eve with the apple, Abelard and Heloise, Oscar Wilde and the “Love that dare not speak its name,” Winnie the Pooh and that tantalizingly out-of-reach honey pot.
Once I got to college, I became friends with lots of people who smoked weed—it wasn’t just the Pit kids anymore. It quickly became obvious that marijuana didn’t have a drastically negative effect on my college friends the way alcohol did. After a late night at the bar, my roommates and I would come home sick as hell—we pretty much got our degrees in “pulling trigger” (putting your finger down your throat) when facing a severe hangover, or, the ultimate, actual alcohol poisoning. Suffice it to say, vomiting is no fun, but it is a surefire means of learning your limit.
Our nights of college drinking resulted in plenty of awkward situations, but we always made it home safely. Tragically, I knew other people who died in drunk-driving accidents.
But weed was different. I never saw any of my stoner friends have sloppy nights full of regret. More often than not, they’d end up sleepy and hungry, which was awesome for me because I’m almost always sleepy and hungry (and I’ll never turn down a friend who wants to eat Fritos and watch Adventure Time).
While marijuana may have been a contributing factor in some deaths, there is no documented death caused solely by overdosing on pot.1 Weed has triggered underlying heart conditions in a small handful of cases, but the drug itself was not the cause of death. In other incidents, people have done stupid things while under the influence of marijuana; in one case, a man jumped off a balcony and died after eating several pot cookies.2 So, yes, marijuana—like alcohol—can impair judgment and cause users to do dumb things they normally wouldn’t. But there’s no proof that “overdosing” on the drug can, by itself, cause death.
A marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times the amount of THC in a joint in order to be at risk.3 And study after study has shown that marijuana does not lead to lung cancer.4
But how harmful—or harmless—weed is should be a moot point. An adult should have every right to do whatever they please in the privacy of their own home, so long as nobody else is affected. Eating too much junk food can make you morbidly obese, which we all know leads to heart disease, diabetes, and often death. But if you want to sit on the couch and stuff deep-fried nachos into your face until your heart seizes up, that’s your prerogative! No one is going to stop you, and no one should stop you—it’s your body. And since you’re allowed to contaminate your body with fatty foods, alcohol, or cigarettes, why not with weed? Why not with cocaine or even heroin?
After all, legalizing drugs would allow them to be regulated and sold out in the open. This would make the entire industry safer; consumers would know exactly what they were putting in their bodies. This would eliminate the risk of injecting cleaning fluid or smoking pencil shavings and hence would save many lives.
For many of us, this issue is more than just theoretical. Almost everyone has heard of families who have lost a loved one to laced drugs. I know more than just one: Over the last couple of years, there have been dozens of accidental overdoses near my hometown caused by batches of tainted heroin. Some of those overdoses even ended in death.
Chardonnay Colonese died of an overdose on October 13, 2014. Everyone in the area called her Nay. I was lounging on my couch, spending another quality evening on Facebook (yes, I have quite the exciting social life), and was up to the usual: stalking old boyfriends and creeping on pictures of my frenemies, when I suddenly noticed a flood of “R.I.P.” messages in my newsfeed. I remember thinking, “Oh no, not again.” There had already been a string of untimely deaths in my hometown that year, mostly drug related and involving kids still attending my old high school in my younger brother’s class. I was scared to see who the latest victim was. This time it was Nay. My heart dropped. She was only eighteen years old. I didn’t know Nay well, but lots of my friends did. It was clear that they were completely shattered by her death. One of my friends posted a status that night that read, “Seriously, Nay? I’m so hurt by you right now. The last thing you said to me was, ‘If we lose another person, I’m going to wake them up and kill them again.’ And here we are, you left me. We had plans and you left before we could do them. I’m so heartbroken right now.”
The saddest thing about this story? Nay didn’t have to die. It’s one thing to kill yourself willingly, but it’s another thing entirely to kill yourself accidentally. Nay trusted the drug dealer who sold her heroin—he didn’t tell her that it was laced with fentanyl, an opioid used as a painkiller in hospitals. She had no clue that it would end her life.
As kids, we all make dumb decisions. But we shouldn’t die because of them. Think about this for a second: If heroin had been legal, Nay probably wouldn’t be dead today. She could have bought clean heroin produced in a sterilized lab instead of turning to the black market. When people want to take drugs, they’re going to find a way to take drugs regardless of whether or not they’re illegal. We may as well bring the industry out of the shadows and allow it to operate in a safer and regulated manner.
I know, I know, the thought of hard drugs such as heroin being openly sold on the market doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. I get it. But if you don’t like something, then you can choose not to associate with it. (You’ll notice this theme recurring throughout the book.)
Still not with me? OK. Imagine for a moment what would happen if the feds decided to ban Pepsi. People would find other ways to get the soda, and a black market would be born. Pepsi would be produced in filthy basements and then handed off to dealers who would distribute it to thousands of soda addicts looking to get their fix. It would all work pretty well until someone decided to bulk up their Pepsi supply with a bit of, say, cleaning fluid to make a larger profit. Then some unknowing customers would drop dead the following week, just like that, all because they wanted to get a caffeine buzz and a sugar rush. The people who created this toxic batch would most likely get away with mass murder, since their operation would hardly be out in the open.
Sound familiar?
People who disagree with me say that drug use would hit harder than the latest iPhone if drugs were legalized. I don’t buy that argument. Prohibition rarely works. Back in 1920, alcohol was made illegal to reduce crime, solve social issues, and improve citizens’ health. Prohibition was dubbed the “noble experiment.” However noble the intentions of this experiment may have been, it was an epic flop. Immediately following the ban, alcohol consumption did drop a small amount, given that it was harder to find—at first. But as Launcelot said in The Merchant of Venice, “in the end truth will out.” Two years later, consumption actually increased sharply and then remained higher than it was prior to the ban.5
As a result, the feds funneled immense resources into enforcing Prohibition. Not counting the increased spending of local and state governments, the federal Bureau of Prohibition increased its annual budget from $4.4 million to $13.4 million during the ban.6 Despite this, people kept guzzling booze. A thriving underground industry was created, with production and distribution carried out by an army of entrepreneurs operating in the black market. And just like those laced drugs, alcohol also became more dangerous to consume.
The Iron Law of Prohibition, coined by activist Richard Cowan, states that illegal substances become increasingly potent as law enforcement increases. Rather than producing lighter alcohols like beer, producers operating in the shadows are incentivized to create more concentrated spirits like whiskey and wines. The reasons are simple: More potent alcoholic beverages take up less space in storage, are lighter to transport, and sell at a higher price. Go big or go home! Nobody would risk jail time for crafting the bootleg equivalent of Bud Light.
But it wasn’t just the potency of the alcohol that made it more dangerous to drink. Lots of amateurs started producing moonshine during Prohibition, and some of it contained lethal ingredients. The annual death rate from spiked liquor almost quadrupled between 1920 and 1925.7
Crime (and tough guys talking out of the corners of their mouths) also increased during Prohibition. Prisons became overcrowded and filled to capacity with bootleggers. So funds weren’t being spent only in an effort to enforce the ban but also to keep thousands of people in prison for violating it. Federal spending on prisons increased almost 1,000 percent during Prohibition!8
Put simply: Prohibition was a bigger failure than Britney Spears’s marriage to Kevin Federline. It resulted in a bloated government, astronomical spending, and gangsters in fedoras running speakeasies. If you’ve ever seen an episode of Boardwalk Empire, you know what I’m talking about.
The War on Drugs hasn’t been any more successful. Just like the thousands of patrons getting drunk in speakeasies during Prohibition, Americans are getting high in basements, in parked cars, and on the decks of their classmates’ homes in this country each and every day—and what’s so much worse is that many are sitting in jail for it, their lives sustained by tax dollars that would be better put to use elsewhere.
Every year hundreds of thousands of Americans are arrested for “offenses” related to pot. A guy I knew in high school named Tyler (not a member of the Pit, as it happens) is serving time for a marijuana-related offense. Tyler got an especially long sentence, because he had one prior nonviolent marijuana conviction. I remember sitting next to him in a computer lit class during freshman year; we spent most of the class sneakily photographing the teacher when she wasn’t looking, then Photoshopping her butt. (We both became proficient in Adobe’s Creative Suite products that semester.) Tyler was a funny kid with a good sense of humor. Sure, he wasn’t the “sharpest blunt,” but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He doesn’t deserve to be sitting in jail right now—and we taxpayers don’t deserve to be footing the bill.
Unfortunately, Tyler isn’t the only one behind bars for victimless, pot-related offenses. Almost 650,000 people were arrested in 2015 alone for marijuana law violations. Eighty-nine percent of those arrests were for possession only.9 Why the hell are we paying for these people to be sitting in jail? Every year we spend $51 billion on the War on Drugs.10 Yet in spite of all the spending, 1.5 million people are still arrested every year on nonviolent drug charges.11 Did our lawmakers fail math? Let the pot smokers out of jail already and reserve that space for actual criminals who have harmed other people instead of just their own brain cells.
Here’s an idea: instead of wasting billions on initiatives that simply don’t work, why don’t we allow people to smoke their doobies out in the open, since they’re doing it anyway? We could regulate and tax the sale of weed; if all fifty states legalized marijuana today, more than $3 billion would be collected in taxes annually.12 We could actually start making money off the marijuana business and putting it toward the national debt (although knowing the buffoons we have in Washington, they’d probably just blow it on unnecessary crap like overpriced office chairs and monogrammed pens they’ll lose faster than our hard-earned dollars).
Don’t get me wrong—we still need rules in place when it comes to drugs. Do whatever you want in the privacy of your home. But if you show up at a public playground high on meth then you absolutely deserve to go to jail, because you’re putting the safety of others at risk. All drugs, if legalized, could be regulated just like alcohol; driving under the influence and public intoxication would result in swift punishment. In this newfangled, drug-tolerant society, private businesses should also have the right to ban drugs on their premises. The law shouldn’t be able to force a restaurant owner to allow smoking in his or her restaurant, just as it can’t force a restaurant owner to serve alcohol in their place of business. The business owner should be able to decide on these issues and we, the consumers, can decide whether or not we wish to do business with them on these terms.
A few states have led the charge to end this War on Drugs by decriminalizing marijuana. In Colorado residents can grow up to six cannabis plants and possess one ounce of weed while traveling.13 Weed is basically treated the same way as alcohol, and Colorado’s citizens are basically treated as adults. Colorado Amendment 64, which outlines the state’s marijuana policies, was passed in 2012. Three years have passed since then, and here’s what hasn’t happened: The state hasn’t been destroyed and hospitals aren’t overflowing with “marijuana overdose” cases. But what has happened? Arrests, crime rates, the unemployment rate, and traffic fatalities have all gone down, while tax revenue has gone up.14 As of October 2014, less than one year after marijuana was decriminalized, the state had already raked in more than $40 million in marijuana taxes.15
As may happen with any decriminalization effort, the state has faced some challenges since Amendment 64 passed. Over the last few years, a small handful of children have been admitted to hospitals after accidentally ingesting marijuana products. Of course this is a major concern. But it’s unclear if the decriminalization was directly responsible for these incidents, and thousands of children are treated at hospitals each year for consuming household cleaners and other products.16 Colorado has also seen a “fourfold increase” in household pets, primarily dogs, accidentally ingesting marijuana-laced brownies since the decriminalization.17 Again, this is a serious concern, but there are plenty of other foods such as chocolate and raisins that are dangerous (even fatal) for dogs to consume. Owners should be aware of any risks associated with their pets ingesting marijuana, and they are responsible for keeping these substances out of the reach of their furry friends. If a pet owner is unable to follow simple procedures to keep their pet safe, perhaps he or she shouldn’t own a pet in the first place.
If Colorado carefully treats and regulates marijuana like it does alcohol, the industry will likely continue to benefit the economy and bring a once-dangerous industry out of the shadows. Sounds like the rest of the nation should start paying attention and follow Colorado’s lead.
As insulting as it can be to have some Big Brother overseer telling us what we can and can’t put into our bodies, it’s downright creepy when that oversight extends to our bedrooms. Folks, it’s 2017. We all have friends or family members who are openly gay, and many of them are brave enough to be out and proud. It’s an issue affecting many of our loved ones, and it’s time for politicians to stop pushing their own ideas of whomever their god wants us to love. Our elected officials are supposed to be serving and representing us—not lamenting the depravity of our sex lives.
It was my first day at Emerson College in Boston. After settling into my eleventh-floor room in the dorm building, I got in the elevator to go outside and explore the city. A slim, dapper guy wearing Sperry shoes got into the elevator with me. The doors began to close when a girl in the hall started running toward us. She shouted, “Hey, hold the door!”
Sperry Guy and I glanced at each other—he was closest to the elevator buttons. While watching that girl pant and run, he reached down and hit Door Close. As the doors shut and we began our descent to the lobby, Sperry Guy looked at me and said, “I’m feeling like a bitch today.”
I knew at that moment that he and I would be friends.
Sperry Guy’s name was Todd. He and I remain close to this day. Todd is gay, flamboyantly so, and the life of every party. He’s also so much more than the token gay guy who pulls out the world’s great one-liners. I can honestly say that he is one of the best friends I have ever had. Whenever I’m sad or need a pick-me-up, I call Todd.
My friendship with him forced me to see life through rainbow-tinted lenses; it was clear that Todd was proud to be gay but that he faced challenges because of his sexuality. I never saw him harassed outright for his homosexuality, but when we went out together, I noticed a subtle categorization occurring more often than not. It was painfully obvious that everyone around us immediately labeled him as the Gay Guy, as if that was all he was. Yes, Todd is gay, but he’s also a person with his own strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. After graduation Todd moved to Los Angeles, where he now lives with his boyfriend, Michael, and their dog.
The 2015 Supreme Court ruling Obergefell v. Hodges gave Todd and Michael the right to marry in any state. The ruling was a big win for liberty, but it disturbs me that it took us so long to get to this point. Denying two people basic rights simply because they have matching genitals is some seriously outdated, bigoted stuff. For too long the government has behaved like a bouncer at the marriage club, only letting in groups it approved of. I never understood why two (or more) consenting adults shouldn’t be allowed to enter into private unions and contracts without first garnering permission from Uncle Sam.
Oh, you don’t like gay marriage? Lucky you—you’re completely free to attend a church that doesn’t recognize or practice it. You’re also free to not marry someone of the same sex. But why on earth do we want politicians dictating the private lives of peaceful people based on their own beliefs? That’s a Pandora’s box you don’t want to open. Because eventually one of those politicians will come along with a moral compass that doesn’t align with your own, and when that day comes, do you want your personal liberties stomped on because some gray-haired bureaucrat in D.C. thinks you’re a pervert?
The scary thing is that there are lots of politicians in D.C. right now actively (if largely with astonishing ineptitude) trying to strip Todd and Michael of their ability to get married. Ted Cruz (R, Texas), for example, went out of his way to instruct states to ignore the SCOTUS ruling if they weren’t specifically mentioned in it.18 Obergefell only considered Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, and Kentucky. That means that Todd and Michael would be denied this basic right in states like good ol’ Texas. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker went even further, calling for an amendment to reverse the decision altogether.19
Walker said, “I believe this Supreme Court decision is a grave mistake. Five unelected judges have taken it upon themselves to redefine the institution of marriage, an institution that the author of this decision acknowledges has been with us for millennia.” The governor demanded that the ability to define marriage be given back to the states, and along with it, the ability to ban gays from participating in matrimony. If you ask me, the real perverts are the ones who can’t keep anti-LGBT issues off their minds and out of their mouths.
Perhaps that’s the root of the problem: Why is government—federal or state—defining marriage in the first place? Whatever happened to separation of church and state? No one should be in the all-powerful position of defining what marriage should mean for every single American.
Maybe my church decides to form unions between gay couples, and calls that marriage, but your church only considers unions between one man and one woman marriage. And hell, maybe a church down the street considers unions between one man and three women marriages. Don’t like it? Then don’t associate with that church. It’s none of our damn business what they’re doing at the church down the street anyway. Marriage is a personal matter—not a political one. We don’t need the government to wave its magic wand and make our opinions legitimate. Ideally, the only time the state would get involved is when someone’s rights are being violated, like when a person enters a marriage by force or when children are involved.
One thing I hear from Republicans over and over is that they don’t want gay marriage because they don’t believe same-sex couples should be recognized for federal tax purposes. I agree with that—gay married couples shouldn’t get tax breaks. But neither should any married couple! Big whoop, you partnered up. You already get a financial break in the sense that now there’s someone around to split the rent with you. Again, it all boils down to getting the government out of the marriage business. By giving tax benefits to married couples, the government is penalizing those who choose not to get married (or who can’t find a partner), as well as those who enter into nontraditional unions. The same set of rules should apply to every individual who files taxes, married or not. Anything else would be prejudicial.
Critics of nontraditional marriage often say, “Well what’s next? Allowing people to marry their dogs?” Sorry, but that is one of the dumbest questions I’ve ever heard. Animals and children can’t consent to marriage or sex, so no, people will not be permitted to marry their dogs. There’s a huge difference between forcing a person or an animal to marry you and marrying the person (or persons) you love. The scenarios aren’t in any way comparable, and to suggest otherwise makes us look like a country of crusty old pervs.
We’ve all read the horror stories circulated on social media about Christian-run bakeries refusing wedding cakes to gay couples. One of these incidents occurred in the liberal mecca of Portland, Oregon. Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, are devout Christians. In 2013, a lesbian couple, Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer, visited Sweet Cakes hoping to buy a cake for their commitment ceremony.20 The women walked out of the shop after Aaron Klein denied service to them, citing his religious beliefs. The couple claimed Aaron also recited Leviticus 20:13 at them (which, interestingly enough, doesn’t even mention women lieth-ing together). It says only that, “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”21
A few weeks later the bakers received a surprise in the mail: a notice that they were facing a civil complaint because they didn’t provide equal service to the lesbian couple in a place of public accommodation. The couple said in their lawsuit that they had suffered “emotional damages,” listing eighty-eight symptoms of distress.22 They even asserted that they had been “mentally raped” by the Kleins.23 Oregon labor commissioner Brad Avakian wanted to make an example of the bakery and ordered the Kleins to pay $135,000 to Laurel and Rachel to help them deal with the effects of Aaron Klein’s actions.24
Sweet Cakes was a mom-and-pop business; the Kleins didn’t exactly have $135,000 just lying around. They weren’t able to cough up the dough by the deadline, and the publicity of the incident prompted large activist groups to launch boycotts against any wedding vendor that associated or did business with Sweet Cakes.25 The Kleins ended up losing their bakery (but have since landed on their feet after raising $109,000 on GoFundMe and $352,000 via ContinueToGive, two online crowd-funding websites).26
After forcing them to pay up, Avakian went the extra mile and ordered the Kleins to “cease and desist” from openly stating that they won’t serve gay couples because of their religious beliefs.27
Crowd-funding miracle aside, even those of us who aren’t cuckoo-evangelical-social right wingers should be alarmed by the outcome of this situation. The state stripped the Kleins of their First Amendment rights, and told them they must remain quiet about their faith. Mr. Klein said in an interview, “You’re looking at a government agency telling a private citizen what they can and cannot say. This should scare every American.”
And it should.
I’ve had the gay marriage debate hundreds of times with my socially conservative friends, and I usually get the same response over and over again, no matter what argument I try to present: “Gay marriage goes against my religious beliefs!” I totally get that. And this is where things get kind of complicated. The government certainly shouldn’t be able to ban gay couples from getting married, but should it be able to force individuals to preside over or cater a gay wedding? No. Individuals and businesses should never be forced to provide services to anyone, gay or straight, black or white. In a free country, we should have the right to discriminate as long as that discrimination isn’t government-sponsored.
After the SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage, a huge group of homophobic leaders gathered in Dallas. Spewing hateful, disgusting rhetoric, the group of scowling gargoyles attempted to organize marches and protests against gay marriage. Dr. Steven Hotze, president of the Conservative Republicans of Texas, said at the meeting, “Homosexual marriage isn’t really a marriage. It’s a counterfeit. It’s a lie.”28
I sure as hell don’t agree with Hotze and his bigoted, outdated group. But you know what? They have every right to be bigots, just like Todd and Michael have every right to marry each other. Just because you find something distasteful—whether it’s gay marriage, hurtful speech, or the hairstyles on Sister Wives—you do not have the right to ban or censor it. By all means, decline that wedding invitation, block that spewing of hate on social media, or change the channel on your TV. There’s an important distinction to be made between what Hotze and his friends were doing, and what Cruz was trying to do following the gay marriage ruling. Voicing your disgust with someone’s actions, or even discriminating because of them, as a private citizen or business, is a lot different from attempting to use the heavy hand of government to flat-out ban that action.
Citizens in a free country have the right to be bigots, and that right extends far beyond free speech alone. If you own a photography business but don’t want to take pictures at a gay wedding, you should have every right to decline. It’s your business. You invested your own money to open its doors. But as government continues to mandate “inclusion,” Uncle Sam will make you pay up if you deny service to anyone for any reason.
Brad Avakian’s initial efforts to eliminate prejudice against gay couples by awarding that lesbian couple $135,000 for their “mental rape” ironically resulted in even more prejudice—in this case, prejudice against Christians. Some attorneys have even come forward and suggested that the Kleins could file a civil rights case against Avakian. The ruling was used as a means to intimidate other Christians. The message was more obvious than my acne in middle school: Make your Christian beliefs known, especially in your place of business, and you will be swiftly and harshly punished.
Narrow-minded, all-powerful government officials have continued to single out Christian business owners again and again over the years. Apparently, Christians aren’t a protected class. In 2014, another baker, Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, was also ordered to cease and desist from expressing his Christian beliefs in the workplace.29 Phillips’s story should sound familiar at this point.
In 2012, the baker refused service to a gay couple, stating that he couldn’t make them a cake because of his faith. After the gay couple filed a complaint, the state ruled that Phillips must either serve gay couples or face hefty fines.30 The Orwellian ruling additionally forces Phillips to submit quarterly reports to Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission to prove that he hasn’t turned away any gay or lesbian couples. Fox News’s Todd Stearnes called it “reverse conversion therapy (or straight man’s rehab).”31 And just like that gay conversion therapy, this one also won’t result in “straightening” out anybody.
In another case of apparent Christian persecution, the prior fire chief of Atlanta, Kelvin Cochran, was suspended from his job in November 2014 after he wrote a book for a bible study group at his Baptist church.32 One of the book’s passages focused on homosexuality and was titled, “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” Cochran was supposed to return to work after the thirty-day suspension, but was officially fired in 2015.33 Even though I disagree with Cochran’s views, I can’t help but feel bad for the guy. He was punished for practicing his fundamental right to free speech, and within his church, of all places. This wasn’t an opinion he forced on his coworkers or neighbors.
Are you starting to see a trend here? These cases aren’t just about religious freedom—they’re also about the freedom of speech. The First Amendment guarantees both the freedom of religion and the freedom of expression. It says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”34
As clear as that language is, our elected officials continue to impinge on our First Amendment rights. What makes this all even more unsettling is that many Americans don’t seem to care about the erosion of these fundamental rights. Immediately following the same-sex marriage ruling, a survey conducted by the Barna Group found that one in five Americans thinks that “religious institutions or clergy should be required to perform same-sex marriages.”35
Seriously? Wake up, people! If that isn’t a violation of religious freedom, then I don’t know what is.
Thankfully, some individuals in the LGBT community are starting to sound the alarm on the violation of free expression in the name of “equality.” Jesse Bartholomew is a gay baker and chef who made a viral YouTube video expressing his frustration with gay and lesbian couples who filed complaints against Christian bakers.36 “I cannot tell you how disgusted I am with my fellow gay and lesbian community—that they would stoop so low as to force someone to bake a cake for them who simply doesn’t agree with them,” Bartholomew said. He continued, “It’s plain and simple: you are bullying someone, you are forcing someone, you are being a Nazi and forcing someone to bake a damn wedding cake for you when there are hundreds of other gays and lesbians that would gladly have your business. Shame on you.”
Here’s the bottom line: It’s scary when a person can’t express his or her beliefs without fearing punishment. If you’re Christian or Muslim, Arab or Jew, Hindu or Buddhist, Scientologist or pagan, you should be allowed to worship as you wish without fear. As long as you aren’t harming others, you should be able to follow your faith.
In fact, I believe that you should have the freedom to practice what you believe even if you aren’t religious. If you start a business, you ought to be able to make your own rules. Maybe you want to serve only atheists and Satanists. If you’re especially bigoted, the public will most likely find your practices distasteful and the free market will punish you. Do you really think patrons would buy food from a deli that refuses to serve black people? Get real. Groups would boycott that business and launch massive protests. The deli would make little money and would likely shut down in a matter of weeks.
Government interventions to ensure equal rights were needed in the past—but such steps were necessary to right the wrongs of negative government-imposed discriminatory laws. Antiblack Jim Crow laws, for example, operated until the mid-1960s. These laws were a form of government-backed racism that rendered black Americans second-class citizens. Under Jim Crow laws, African-Americans and Caucasians weren’t allowed to eat together; a black male couldn’t even offer to shake hands with a white male because it implied that they were equals.37 What’s more, African Americans were prohibited from publicly showing affection toward one another.38 It should be obvious why government action was needed to reverse the crippling effects of this state-enforced racism. But the bigoted actions of private citizens, businesses, and groups are completely different.
We allow hate groups to spew putrid language and hold rallies every day across the nation in the name of the First Amendment. During the summer of 2015, the Ku Klux Klan and the New Black Panthers faced off outside of the South Carolina Capitol.39 They clashed over the Confederate flag, which many believe is a symbol of hate. The confrontation between the two groups resulted in a bigger clusterf*ck than Courtney Love’s bachelorette pad ever featured, with shouts of hatred on both sides. In this incident, the government had the right response: Police were present to protect both groups. And I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw this tweet from Columbia mayor Steve Benjamin: “If a tree falls in the forest & there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? If the KKK marches and there’s no one there… #ignorethem.”40
Don’t like what the KKK or what the New Black Panthers have to say? Turn off your TV. It’s simple. I think the stuff Al Sharpton says on his TV show every day is destructive and offensive, but I still believe he should have every right to speak his mind. So I simply don’t tune in (and based on his cable ratings I’m not the only one).41 Christian bakers and the like should also enjoy these First Amendment rights.
For all of you who were drifting off, playing Snapchat, and Facebooking during the last several pages, here’s my point in a nutshell: A nation that allows its people to live as they choose grants them the freedom of expression. Sometimes that expression is beautiful and full of love. But often, that expression is distasteful and discriminatory. And that’s OK, because this is America where you can have your cake and eat it, too—even if you have to bake it yourself.
“We should crack down on marijuana, because it’s destructive to our communities.”
You say: “Weed dumbs people down and makes them lazy—too lazy to venture out for more than a bag of powdered donuts, let alone commit crimes. Sure, your pothead neighbor might take a while to mow his yard, but destroy a community? Nah, bro, nah.”
“Marijuana is a gateway drug!”
You say: “Cigarettes, pipes, and alcohol are also gateway drugs to far worse things. Should we outlaw them, too? Why not? It worked so well in the 1920s!”
“Gays are fundamentally ruining the institution of marriage!”
You say: “Wrong. The government is ruining the institution of marriage. There was no controversy about marriage for thousands of years, until the government stepped in to enforce new rules and regulations. And if you’re going to punish gays for wrecking ‘the sanctity of marriage’ (which I’d love to hear you define), maybe it’s time to force divorcees to remain single as well.”
“I don’t think gays should be allowed to marry.”
You say: “If you hate gays so much, wouldn’t you want them to have the same right to be miserable, too?”
“I’m offended by that baker who won’t serve gay couples.”
You say: “Are you also offended by the Jewish baker who won’t bake an ISIS cake? Does the black baker who doesn’t want to bake a Ku Klux Klan cake offend you? Are you offended by the liberal baker who won’t bake a Confederate flag cake? My goodness! Isn’t it exhausting being offended by so many things? You’d better check your Facebook feed—you don’t want to run out of the personal beliefs of other people to be offended by!”