Sometimes names can be deceiving. We all learn that lesson at some point in life. It falls right in with the adage of, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

A piece of legislation moving through the halls of the Mississippi Capitol has a name that is a bit deceiving. House Bill 1523 is titled “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act.”

The problem is the very practices it aims to “protect” are discrimination, not the other way around.

The bill — which has passed both the Senate and the House and is expected soon to go to the governor’s office — gives government officials or an employee or service provider the ability to discriminate against people for whom they believe engage in practices that are against their religions.

An example of the discrimination allowed in the bill is, a florist says to a same-sex marriage couple seeking to purchase flowers that selling flowers to homosexuals is against his religion.

On the surface, maybe that doesn’t sound bad to you.

Perhaps like thousands of Americans, you feel like your rights as a Christian have been impeded for years and years.

Think again.

The challenge is that in the name of Christianity — let’s face it the majority of religious people in Mississippi claim Christianity as their religion — Mississippi lawmakers are effectively encouraging Christians to act, well, un-Christian.

In the 1990s, the phrase “What Would Jesus Do” became popularized with the initials WWJD emblazoned on all sorts of things.

While none of us sinful mortals can actual come close to thinking like that, let alone acting like the perfect person Jesus, it’s worth considering for a minute, based on what Jesus actually did in his time walking on earth.

He interacted with all people and treated all fairly and with love.

He accepted kindness of people who he knew were to be considered outcasts by those around him.

He held up people as models who Jews at the time would have found as shocking as many of us find images of same sex marriage — the parable of the Good Samaritan or the woman who washed Jesus’ feet at Simon’s house.

Lawmakers are trying to flex their muscle to show how Christian and right they are, but in doing so, they’re showing a sad streak of hatred.

HB 1523 calls out the matter of a county circuit clerk who finds same-sex marriage repulsive by his religious beliefs as one of the points the law aims to “fix.”

The law of our land indicates such is allowed, even if many of us find it goes against God’s law. That doesn’t mean, however, that circuit clerks have to enjoy the matter nor does filing out a piece of government-required paper force one to change his or her beliefs.

The matter is, perhaps, the slipperiest of slopes imaginable.

The First Amendment should rule the day and people — all people in America — have the ability to pursue their own religious practices.

The challenge comes in when someone — like the majority of Mississippi lawmakers, it seems — steps up and says, “It’s against my religion to do my job for you because you are XXXX.”

In this case the XXXX is replaced by “gay” or “lesbian.” But what happens when lawmakers inch the law a bit further along and the XXXXs become much different?

“It’s against my religion to do my job for you because you are black.”

“… because you are old.”

“… because you are Catholic.”

“… because you are Republican or Democratic.”

Jesus taught us to hate the sin, but love the sinner — period, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Perhaps the majority of the Mississippi House and Senate members simply skipped that day at Sunday School or merely don’t care because they feel the Gospel message doesn’t apply anymore in Mississippi?

Refusing to serve someone because you don’t like his beliefs is far from Biblical and yet again makes Mississippi appear to be a state of bigots.

 

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.