Bryan Fischer says anti-gay activists need to “reclaim the word discrimination,” I suppose, like they need to reclaim rainbows. According to the American Family Association’s deranged director of issues analysis, discrimination is actually a good thing:
Discrimination, when it comes to sexual behavior is not bad, it is good, and it is necessary. The alternative is utter social chaos. So [it’s] time, ladies and gentlemen, to reclaim the discrimination word when it comes to sexual matters. It’s not bad; it’s good. It’s a virtue and it’s necessary.
This is because Fischer says homosexual behavior is “non-normative” by deviating from his god’s plan for human sexual behavior, and that therefore it is okay to discriminate against non-normative things you think are wrong.
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Of course, he misses (again) the entire point of the First Amendment, in that others are not required to give a fig what he thinks his god wants. There are other gods and there are people who recognize no gods. According to the law of the land – which is the Constitution, not the Bible – people absolutely have this right.
Fischer’s views, however he may wish otherwise, are not enshrined in law. In fact, the Founding Fathers went to great lengths to ensure they would never be.
I wonder if excessive hatred of people who are different from you can be considered non-normative. I certainly think so. I suspect the medical profession might agree. If so, Fischer might want to watch out. By his own definition, we can discriminate against him and people like him with virtue in our hearts and on a sound scientific basis to boot.
Speaking of definitions…
According to Merriam-Webster, virtue is defined as,
: morally good behavior or character
: a good and moral quality
On the other hand, Merriam-Webster defines discrimination as,
: the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people
: the ability to recognize the difference between things that are of good quality and those that are not
: the ability to understand that one thing is different from another thing
We are clearly talking about the first definition here. From that definition, it is clear that discrimination cannot by definition be a good thing. Fischer says discrimination is a virtue, but it is impossible to say discrimination is a virtue, because – and it is impossible to argue against this finding – they are diametrically opposed to one another.
Yet Fischer says,
Discrimination is not a bad word. The left has turned discrimination into a bad word.
The first use of the word discrimination comes from 1648. Yes, the word, from the Latin, originally meant to distinguish one thing from another, but the Civil War and slavery changed all that, not the left, as Fischer would have it. So it is slavery, an evil, that “turned discrimination into a bad word.”
Now keep in mind Fischer is saying they need to “reclaim” this word, as though it was ever a good thing to treat people badly because they look or act differently than you. I would like Bryan Fischer to point to a time when discrimination was a good thing. When women were denied the vote and careers outside the home? When blacks were kept as slaves and even when freed denied the vote and equal rights? If that is discrimination, how is treating gays and lesbians like blacks and women were once treated suddenly a good thing?
Let’s run another test. Here are the 12 Lakota virtues:
Here are my the Nine Noble Virtues of Heathen folk by which I live:
1. Courage
2. Truth
3. Honour
4. Fidelity
5. Discipline
6. Hospitality
7. Self Reliance
8. Industriousness
9. Perseverance
I don’t see discrimination listed on either.
In fact, on both lists I see virtues that would mitigate against discrimination, like hospitality and generosity and compassion. Maybe other belief systems are simply morally superior to Fischer’s own. His is certainly mean and ugly, and I cannot imagine Jesus standing up and cheering for hate when he told his followers to love.
The only word Bryan Fischer needs to be concerning himself with right now is shame.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
