When Did We Forget?

     Without expressing much of an opinion either way on the controversial subject, I will note the recent U. S. Supreme Court decision about if a website designer offering services to the general public ought or ought not be obliged to design a site for a ceremony (in the hypothetical put before the Court, a same-sex wedding) repugnant to their religious beliefs has produced a remarkable phenomenon on many news and opinion sites all across the political spectrum: they refer to "Christians" and "LGBT people" as if these were two separate and opposed groups.

     I've got news for 'em: the two groupings are highly mingled with one another.  Many LGBT people are Christians and many Christian churches are accepting of them, from the rainbow-centric (and yet often fundamentalist-leaning) Metropolitan Community Church to denominations as familiar as the Quakers and the largest branch of the Presbyterian Church.  Others take a nuanced approach, welcoming LGBT worshipers but limiting ordination to heterosexuals or to straight men.

     You can certainly find lots of Christian sects that condemn same-sex marriage (etc.) and I would be surprised if the demographics for atheist, agnostic and non-Christian believers in the U.S. were significantly different between LGBT citizens and the straight population.  But stop pretending that these are two teams with zero common ground or overlap; that misrepresents the reality and drastically understates the complexity.

     I wish the Court had drawn a clearer line between a "work for hire" and an "independent artistic creation." This is a much simpler criteria -- if I'm writing Tom Swift books for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, then they own the result and I've got to write to their outline; if I'm writing my own novel on my own time about a teenaged inventor, I own it and I can write (or omit) any darned thing I like.  But the Court does not appear to have done so and that's how it is.  Lower courts will thread the needle based on their reading of the decision and we'll find out how widely or narrowly they read it.  On such fraught issues, judicial inclinations loom large and I won't be surprised if variations on the theme come before the Supreme Court again.

     When did we forget that freedom of religion was supposed to be a unifying principle and not a dividing one?  Religious beliefs in this country should not be a hammer or a wedge.  The Founders and Framers had mixed opinions about the relations between Church and State -- but the point where the two intersect was supposed to be the individual conscience, not the courtroom or legislature.