Thursday, April 2, 2015

Memo on Indiana: Get a Life

Memo to all sides in the Indiana RFRA controversy:  Chill, will you?  As Mike Royko would have said, if you rate the nation's problems on a scale of 1 to 10,000, the question of who caters/bakes a cake/takes photographs/rents a hall/provides the flowers/furnishes the garments/plays music etc. at a same sex wedding rates somewhere between a three and a five.  The hysterics on both sides are disgraceful.  As is the language.  "Marriage equality"!  "Religious freedom"!

Really, people, if a few people in the wedding services industry are unwilling to participate in your wedding, you are not the equivalent of Selma demonstrators being met with firehoses.  And being ordered to bake a cake at a gay wedding does not mean that Christians will soon be hiding in the catacombs.  Take a deep breath and have some sense of perspective!

Just for the record, I personally would favor allowing wedding services to refuse to take an active part in same sex weddings in exchange for a no discrimination rule in more impersonal sorts of services.  But no doubt other compromises are possible.

But more than that, here is an important memo to both sides.  People's views on gay marriage are not the be-all and end-all of whether they are good people.  Really.  It is perfectly possible to be admirable in almost every way and still disagree with many people of good faith's views on the subject.  So please, simmer down, and GET A LIFE!

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