Remember the Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission? Depending on how you look at the facts (and those withheld), this case was either over whether a religious baker should be forced to make his product for a same-sex couple or whether that couple had been discriminated against if the baker refused their business. Now I don’t want to get into the case in detail, because from my vantage point, both sides had impure motives.
What I want to focus on is the language of the Court’s ruling. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “The Civil Rights Commission’s treatment of his case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection.” After the decision, the phrase “sincere religious beliefs” was tossed all over with pundits and politicians and late night talk show hosts pontificating about what that means.
But I digress. Well, sort of. Several years ago, I and thousands of other educators expressed a deeply held (though not particularly religious) belief that allowing students to carry concealed weapons was not only dangerous, but chilled free speech, and thus violated the First Amendment. Despite the establishment of so-called “gun free zones,” only a handful of places on college campuses can be (at least in Texas) really gun free. This includes the offices of instructors, most of whom are sitting ducks should anyone bring in a weapon.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is about to sign into law a permitless carry bill, allowing people who people to carry a handgun without a permit (and presumably without any formal training in its use). Basically, people who do not have anything legally keeping them from owning or operating a handgun will be able to take them where they want, including my classroom and my office.
Now Abbott has signed an executive order which prohibits anyone in a government building from requiring people to wear masks. It does not matter what sincere beliefs I have or even what the facts of science say: I cannot keep a student or colleague from entering my physical space at work, even if I think this person puts me at risk by not wearing a mask. Keep in mind that those most adamantly refusing to wear a mask also refuse to get vaccinated or practice social distancing.
In the same legislative session, lawmakers are making it illegal to teach anything about how race and racial disparity have shaped our history and government. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, in fact, calls anything that even considers the racist underpinnings of history or laws a “myth.” In the guise of focusing on what some believe are the “positive” elements of our history, we really have just a bunch of good old boys clamoring for good old days that never existed. You know, because according to these guys there is no racism because, you know, Lincoln freed the Martin Luther Kings to dream of a few years ago when we had a black president, y’all.
I am sure of few of you readers will accuse me of being unwilling to accept the deeply held values and beliefs of other people. That is only half true. I am willing to try and understand what people believe. Since 2016 and even more during the pandemic, I’ve tried and sometimes learned something about where anti-mask, anti-vax, and pro-gun citizens get their ideas and where reasonable coexistence can occur. My conservative students, colleagues, co-workers deserve their voice to be heard.
However, Abbott and Patrick pander to an increasingly rabid base, spewing falsities and poison, based not on facts or reason. And the “deeply held beliefs” largely come from the dogma of the Trump cult. The January sixth insurrection is but one example of what happens when lies become beliefs.
Democracy is just an exercise in who is manipulating who to politicians when they pretend to care about the beliefs of only those who advance their careers. These are people who claim to stand up for what is right when the only stand they take is the one their focus groups tell them. They do not even suffer politically from the consequences of their words and actions. I cannot protect myself at work from anti-vaxxers or gun nuts who carry their diseases and their armaments in the name of “God-given rights” that no religious text supports. These assholes think they need to protect themselves from learning (Egad!) the truth about race in a History course and assailants that don’t exist. They need to protect themselves from these priests of deception.
izzy806
discoholicmusic
kaledo-art
dededos