SOGI Laws Skew the Playing Field

Wyoming Equality has the right to discriminate. They have a right to treat me differently than they treat others, just because of what I believe. They have the right to refuse me employment, just because of who I am. When they declined to speak and act in support of my views, they were perfectly within their rights.

Likewise, bakeries, florists and printers who think like Wyoming Equality have the right to refuse my request to create pastries, arrangements, or prints that contradict the message they want to send. They have the right to call you and me bigots, homophobes, and haters. They even have a right to say that we are morally wrong.

Every single day groups like these exercise their first amendment rights. And it hurts. It hurts me, personally. It shames me publicly – as it is intended to, and it has created a climate where people who share the same ideas that I do are materially harmed on a regular basis. It hurts, but I still defend their right to discriminate.

Some, like Memories Pizza in Indiana, were forced to close due to threats of arson and bodily harm. Others, like Melissa’s Sweet Cakes in Oregon, had their equipment vandalized. Still more have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to the harassment and fines of their own state or city governments.

Businesses like Elane Photography, Arlene’s Flowers, Masterpiece Cake Shop, have been shuttered. Public servants like Kelvin Cochrane and Ruth Neely have been fired for expressing their beliefs off the job.

Discrimination is happening every day, in plain sight. I wish it would stop. I have personally talked with LGBT lobbyists and asked them to stop. I have publicly written in these pages asking to be included in a serious conversation of how we might work together to stop it.  (Let’s Work Together to Protect All Wyo. Citizens, January 1, 2017)

There are many other civic-minded people as well who sincerely want to join hands to protect all Wyoming citizens from harm to both their person and property. Instead, two Cheyenne City Councilmen have been working in secret with Wyoming Equality for months, refusing every request even to see a draft of what they are working on.

It is clearer every day that the real point of the ordinance is not to stop actual discrimination, but to insert “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” language into city code. That’s the whole thing. Anybody who thinks there’s a better way to address discrimination is excluded from the table.

Advocating for this SOGI language, Wyoming Equality’s Sara Burlingame has a favorite talking point which was quoted in the WTE last Thursday: “[it is] currently legal to fire, evict or refuse service to someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.” (Councilmen Again Pushing for Protections for LGBT Residents, July 20, 2017)

Of course, this is true. But it’s a half truth, rather, it is a scintilla of the truth. The whole truth is that it is currently legal to fire, evict or refuse service to someone because of their political party, hair color, height, weight, I.Q., schooling, tattoos and a million other relevant and irrelevant factors.

But is anyone saying that we should include all of this in an ordinance? That would be silly. Laws are not given to make everybody virtuous, or to make everybody do whatever I think they ought to do.

Laws are passed when there is actual harm that is happening which needs to be stopped, not simply when there is potential harm which few, if any, are actually doing. So where is the actual harm? Who, exactly, has been denied employment or housing based on sexual orientation or gender identity? We have been debating these SOGI laws for years and still haven’t seen one single case of this kind of discrimination in Wyoming.

Andrew Koppelman, a law professor and progressive activist, has studied discrimination nationwide and found,

“Hardly any of these cases have occurred: a handful in a country of 300 million. In all of them, the people who objected to the law were asked directly to facilitate same-sex relationships, by providing wedding, adoption, or artificial insemination services, or rental of bedrooms. There have been no claims of a right to simply refuse to deal with gay people.” (A Zombie in the Supreme Court: The Elane Photography Cert Denial)

Again, there have been no claims of a right to simply refuse service to gay people. None. What people are claiming is the right to decline saying things, by word or deed, that they don’t believe to be true. They simply want the same right that Wyoming Equality exercises every day.

For this reason, I find it offensive and disingenuous when people who are defending the First Amendment are smeared as “haters” who want to deny service to certain people. Those who make these unjust claims know better. They just don’t want to talk about the real issue.

There simply is no rising tide of discrimination against people on the basis of gender ideology. But there is, demonstrably, a rising trend to punish people who disagree with gender ideology. So who wants Cheyenne to punish those who oppose the new gender ideology?

Benjamin Rasmussen, Rolling Stone Magazine

The June 23, 2017 edition of Rolling Stone suggests an answer. Andy Kroll writes about software mogul, Tim Gill, who is methodically using his $500 million fortune to bankroll SOGI legislation across the country (“Meet the Megadonor Behind the LGBT Rights Movement").

He is not putting his money into national politics. Instead, he is stealthily giving thousands of dollars to elect local officials and push SOGI laws which “punish the wicked” (Tim Gill's words). Is this what is happening to Cheyenne?

By a sustained lack of transparency, Councilmen Roybal and Johnson have left room for this suspicion. When we elect councilpersons, we expect them to work with each other to draft laws in Cheyenne’s interest. We don’t want them to outsource the drafting to out of state activists for partisan interests.

But let’s get back to Wyoming Equality’s right to discriminate. Do I want to pass a law that strips them of these rights? By no means. I will reason and cajole. I will seek to persuade them both publicly and privately to respect my person and my ideals. But I will never, ever, seek the force of law to hinder their rights to speak and act according to their convictions. We should agree on this, at least.

The freedom to speak and act according to one’s convictions comes from a source higher than government. It derives from our common humanity. Governments have no right to take it away. We shouldn’t give them the power. The sweetness of a momentary victory comes at a bitter cost to our common dignity.

For the moment, people on both sides of the issue are free to say and do things that challenge the other side. We are both free to disagree using reason, logic, morals, beliefs, and even feelings. The playing field is level. I don’t call this discrimination, but Wyoming Equality does. They have that right.

Whatever we call it, we should all use our freedoms in charity and respect. SOGI ordinances foster neither. They only take free speech from people like me, and skew the playing field.