Over the past several months a new trend seems to be sweeping across the country. This trend is the proposing and passing of different types of “Religious Freedom” bills. The most recent is the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” which was signed into law by Indiana Governor, Mike Pence, on March 26th, 2015. The signing of this bill into Indiana law has caused an enormous outcry and outrage across different social and conventional media outlets due to the idea held by critics that the law allows for legal discrimination, specifically against members of the LGBT community.
Similar to the House-passed Michigan “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” the law in Indiana allows that private citizens are not forced to do things or associate with people in a way which they feel violates a “sincerely held” religious belief. This does indeed mean that private businesses are legally allowed to refuse service to people if serving those people trespasses some inner-conviction. Passing in the wake of the legalization of gay marriage in Indiana, this law would seem to be, and probably is, a way for the religious conservatives of the State to chip back at what they feel is the continuous erosion of their religion, and to ensure that their State and businesses and homes are not “overrun” by some gay version of the Mongol Horde. Whatever (and however unfounded or ridiculous) the motive for this law is, I have to say that I support it, and that any person who claims to support the cause of liberty, human dignity, and human freedom, has to support this law and others like it.
Obviously everyone would rather not be discriminated against—but discrimination is not in any way positively endorsed or encouraged by this law. These laws do what very few laws that are passed ever do—namely remove the government from an area of society. The “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” is a negative law meaning that it does not give anyone anything, it does not force people to undertake some action, and it does not take more power and personal responsibility away from individuals. Like the negative rights prescribed in the First Amendment, this law simply makes it so that government cannot force people to do something with their property that they do not want to do, just as the government cannot (or at least should not be able to) force people to say or not say something. This is why this law is a good thing, because it stops the government from forcing private individuals and private businesses from having to serve people that they do not want to serve, for whatever reason.
Discrimination of whole groups of people is a terrible, outdated, and unacceptable thing in today’s world. But the battle against what remains of it in our society will not be stamped out by law. It should and will be rooted out by economic means, as well as by good old fashioned persuasion and persistence. Using the law to force private citizens to do what you think is right with themselves or their property is not only immoral, but it is wholly ineffective at changing the mindset which leads to discriminatory activity. Forcing a restaurant owner to serve blacks and gays when they don’t want to doesn’t change anything except that now the hate of that owner is most likely more deeply entrenched, and now he is probably receiving money from those whom he hates. But that is not even the point. The point is that freedom and the sanctity of private property trump everything else.
The birth of modern civilization, our civilization, occurred when the idea came about that humans own themselves. This concept is the single most important idea to ever be thought of, and is the cornerstone of so called “Western” or “American” ideals. By owning yourself you own your actions, your words, and any material goods that you can acquire voluntarily through the use of your actions and words. This idea is sacrosanct and its increased acceptance and practice is what led parts of the world, and which is currently leading other parts, to the fantastic level of success, wealth, and affluence that most Americans enjoy today. That success is wholly dependent on the fact that what I own is mine, and I can do whatever I want with my property, so long as I do not violate the rights of another person or their property. And no, it is no one’s “right” to enter my store or restaurant without my permission just as it is no ones “right” to enter my home.
It deeply worries me that very few people today, be them liberal progressives, Democrats, or Republicans, understand what terms like “right,” “freedom,” “liberty,” and many others mean. It deeply worries me that people who are against this law are so self-righteous and pretentious that they think they have a right to determine who a person does business with, who a restaurant serves, who a doctor has to help—and they feel completely justified in using the violence of law to enforce their beliefs on others. People should have enough critical thinking skills and understanding to see that anti-discrimination laws which deal with private citizens (these laws are perfectly fine when dealing with the state) are completely immoral, unethical, and unfounded. I understand that if I don’t like a business practice then I have two options at my disposal: I can use my own personal economic power and choose to not give my money to the business, and/or I can use my powers of persuasion to convince others to use their own economic power against said business. If you are against businesses having the choice of whom to serve or associate with, then you must also be against consumers “discriminating” against businesses by not choosing to use or go with them for whatever reason. If this law is a bad thing then all boycotts are bad because a boycott is a form of discrimination—you are not using a business and convincing others not to use it because you do not like something about them or the way they conduct business. That is discrimination.
Using the law to get what you want is a childish cop-out—the act of a person who has little understanding of liberty, and who does not wish to put in the effort to actually try to change the mind of society as a whole. What the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” does is remove government and remove the force of law from an area in which it has no business being. The truth of the matter is that if any business or restaurant actually barred gays from entering, it would probably not survive a month because of the outrage it would cause. Calls to boycott and protest would be all over social media in a heartbeat, and they would get so much bad publicity that they would have to either change their practice, or go out of business. And frankly, I would rather know outright where the bigots are so that I know not to support them in any way. We cannot lose sight of ourselves, we cannot lose sight of those attributes which made our society what it is today, and we can never forget that freedom and liberty mean that people are able to do things which we may hold as wrong or which may violate our own beliefs, but that the alternative to that is a world of control, unfreedom, and one in which you do not fully own yourself. Someone’s “feelings” can never and should never trump someone else’s right to their own property, body, or life.