Never in Service of Discrimination

Came across this on Facebook. With the veto of the anti-gay law in Arizona, there is still more going on. I gather there is a bill in Mississippi ready to do the same thing.

Here, in a petition is a short, impassioned plea for sanity, is a way to take a stand that does not mix religion and discrimination. As it says these arguments are far too similar to justifications for Jim Crow laws that kept African Americans from dignity and equality.

Clergy can sign the petition at this link.

Clergy Against Discrimination

As evangelicals, mainline Protestants and Catholics we are alarmed by the pending Mississippi bill that would allow virtually anyone, including businesses, to discriminate against customers in the name of religious liberty. We call on Mississippi and all states to abandon legislation that threatens democracy, civil rights and religious freedom itself.

These misguided efforts eerily echo Jim Crow laws that robbed African Americans of their basic human dignity. Businesses once barred not only blacks, but Jews and Asians from buying homes in certain neighborhoods or eating in restaurants even after Supreme Court rulings overturned segregation laws.

We must not allow faith to be used in the service of discrimination.

When we seek to codify legislation that discriminates against any class of people—no matter our diverse theological beliefs about marriage—we tarnish the treasure of religious freedom and the highest ideals of our democracy. Most of all, we are complicit in violating the Golden Rule that unites us as Christians—to love God and our neighbor as we love ourselves.
-Link

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