Bigotry by Any Other Name

• big·ot:  intolerant person: somebody with strong opinions, especially on politics, religion, or ethnicity, who refuses to accept different views (from Bing)

Antonio Darden is a bigot.

Should we pass a new law to deal with his bigotry?  Did they march in the streets to see he was fired, evicted, and shunned?  No and no.  Mr. Darden, you see, is a hairdresser who refused to perform his trade for a politician who voiced opposition to the legalization of gay marriage.  Two years ago he refused to dress the hair of New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez.  “The governor’s aides called not too long ago, wanting another appointment to come in,” he told KOB-TV. “Because of her stances and her views on this, I told her aides no. They called the next day, asking if I’d changed my mind about taking the governor in and I said no.”

Mr. Darden is clearly intolerant of others’ views on the issue of homosexual marriage.  He believes that they should be able to marry and will not conduct business with policy-makers who disagree.  Upon making this decision public by calling the papers and TV, was he greeted by derision, campaigns for sensitivity training or boycotts?  Well, of course you know the answer.

“Darden says that he’s received enormous support in the form of calls, emails and postcards from around the world, as well as from locals who’ve walked into the salon to give him hugs. He also says other hairstylists and service workers in town are showing solidarity.”  Darden told The Huffington Post that he has received an “outpouring of support beyond belief and from as far away as Hong Kong” and that his salon has received a wave of calls for appointments.  Can you even fathom the reaction if the positions here were reversed?  If Darden were a man who refused service to a politician who voiced support for homosexual marriage, what would the reaction be?

The left’s reaction to Arizona’s legislation (later vetoed by the state’s Republican Governor) to guarantee that religious Arizonans could exercise their freedom of religion and conscience to disassociate shows they are not willing to extend to others the tolerance and respect they demand for themselves.

Why is it that leftists will not support the same level of obeisance to conscience and strength of character when exercised not by a fellow traveler, but a religious conservative anyone who disagrees with their opinion on what someone should think about issues with political implications?  Why must Elaine Huguenin take photos at a gay wedding?  Why should Aaron and Melissa Klein be forced by the proverbial gun-wielding agents of the state to bake cakes for gay weddings against their will or suffer the closure of their business?

Both Antonio Darden and Elaine Huguenin should be permitted by law to do business with anyone, and also to refuse to do business with anyone.  Freedom of association, including its obverse, freedom from association, must be included in commercial activities as noncommercial if it is to have real meaning in our lives.  Imagine the Jewish tattoo artist required to inscribe a giant swastika on the arm of a neo-nazi.  What about a gay florist required to create an arrangement celebrating the infamous Westboro Baptist and their “God hates fags” campaign?  Should they be forced to violate their morality and conscience and do business with people they consider vile and beneath contempt?

If these issues were not having to do with commercial activity, there would be no question the actors could refuse to associate with anyone.  There is, however, a disturbing problem with the current law where simply because money is exchanged for the association, it becomes somehow appropriate for government to intervene and prescribe or proscribe the terms of if and how these people associate.

Let’s remember that the problem with Jim Crow laws were that they were laws, not the policies of individuals or corporations.  They forbade the voluntary association and dealings with black people.  Blacks were assimilating and slowly gaining wealth and political power post-slavery until people (Democrats by and large) succeeded in using government power to forbid them their freedoms.

The first of the Jim Crow laws to be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court prohibited selling property to blacks.  Plessy v. Ferguson established the “separate but equal” standard overruled in Brown vs. Board of Education.  While Brown is taught extensively in our nation’s schools (as it should), what is often overlooked are the facts of Plessy, and their importance. The East Louisiana Railroad company did not want to have to purchase separate cars for black people, but the state of Louisiana required them to do so.  They would have much rather let people of all races travel as they pleased.  The racists who couldn’t get their own way behaving voluntarily, used the coercive power of the state to force their preferences on the railroad – and the US Supreme Court said it was okay.

It is just as wrong for the state to force a photographer to take pictures she doesn’t want to take, as to force a railroad to discriminate against its riders.  More so in fact when you consider the personal and artistic efforts made by the photographer.  The Supreme Court is currently considering whether to take Elaine Huguenin’s appeal.  The choice is clear – between a society where government is involved in all decisions on association, and those in power get to decide what the rules are, or the messy reality of freedom where feelings may be hurt and people may be frustrated with some of their choices in wedding vendors, but people are free to choose with whom they associate.