Anti-gay Christian victimhood has been taken to a whole new level with the passage of the so called Arizona Jim Crow law which was passed by the assembly and now awaits a signature or veto from the governor. The law allows business owners, on the basis of their religious beliefs, to refuse to provide service to gay and lesbian customers. This morning, "news" host Martha MacCallum and her guests discussed this law. While Juan Williams said the law is discriminatory, Andrea Tantaros suggested that the controversy over laws like this, which make Christians look like bigots, could be avoided if gay folks avoid anti-gay business. MacCallum recommended that "the market" forces take over. I guess if African-Americans had only avoided all those segregated hotels, restaurants, water coolers, etc. we wouldn't have had to deal with those troublesome Civil Rights that made white Americans look like bigots?
MacCallum reported on the substance of the bill and played local commentary from both sides. Juan Williams asserted that the law "allows people to discriminate" and noted that public figures are urging a veto. Tantaros said that she "understood why some small business owners and why people who believe in the First Amendment are concerned about their ability to exercise their freedom of religion." MacCallum interrupted her to cite two cases that were the impetus for the bill, a photographer who refused to take pictures at a gay wedding and a New Mexico baker who refuse to provide a cake for a gay wedding. FACT CHECK - the baker, for whom Fox & Friends showed some love, was in Colorado.
Tantaros noted that the baker has gone out of business. She explained that what Arizona is doing is "allow business owners to strengthen their religious freedoms and if they want to, if they're Muslim not cook pork, if they're Jewish, maybe not make a non-Kosher cake or something like that." She said that "this has spiraled totally out of control" and questioned why business owners would refuse to serve gays and "if you're gay, why would you want the baker of hate baking your cake." She claimed that "it's take an crazy turn and gotten way out of hand."
STOP RIGHT HERE - The law was written by the anti-gay Alliance Defending Freedom and the right wingCenter for Arizona Policy. To use Tantaros' metaphor, it has nothing to do with the actual cooking but allowing the baker to refuse services to those whom the baker, on religious grounds, objects to. For instance, if a Catholic baker is against "mixed" marriage, s/he could refuse to serve an interfaith couple. If a Christian baker believes that Jews are "Christ-killers," s/he could refuse to serve Jews. Tantaros is pushing the same kind of talking points pushed by homophobic Christian hate groups.
When Williams spoke against the bil, Tantatros chimed in "they're trying to paint Christians as bigots." MacCallum, who had earlier referenced Jim Crow law, loudly validated Tantaros with her quip about how if there's a store that "hates little kids, right, I'm not going to go in there with my little kids" and "there's a market force here and it tends to work." (Uh, Martha, remember Jim Crow?) She said that gay people "aren't going to march into" a store that hates gays and because that will "be bad for business," it will all work out. Tantaros repeated how she doesn't understand why businesses won't serve gays and why gays would want to do business with these people.
Then came the money quote:
"People don't go where they're not wanted, so very quickly, the gay community will realize I'm not going to that baker anymore...what upsets me the most is that the First Amendment here has been completely ignored, instead it's turned into an argument to paint Christians as bigots and that's the real problem it's just ignited the loudest voices in the room and they're no reason to do that. I don't know why any Christian would not want to serve anybody."
So there you have it - Andrea Tantaros is telling the LGBT community to STFU because it makes all those nice Christians look like bigots and we all know nice Christians would never view gays as, oh, say, deviant pedophiles who are part of the Satanic gay agenda meant to destroy this country. They would never believe in all that Leviticus stuff about killing gays now would they - because, if this law is enacted, they can just order those pesky gays out of their stores with maybe a bible quote thrown in for good measure.
While this discussion seemed even handed, the anti-gay bias was clearly in evidence. If Martha MacCallum thinks that this is "fair & balanced" "news," she can keep on pretending.
Obviously, many prefer bigotry – and hypocrisy. They come more naturally,
I have to say, that Tantaros babe is an awesomely nasty piece of work.
I’ve seen other people floating the idea, so it’s only a matter of time before someone puts his/her shop on the line to actually do it. And you know exactly what Fox News will be saying about that… I haven’t seen much about the sign in Arizona saying they won’t serve legislators that approved the bill on the network, but Fox Nation’s pants pissing about it is definitely a preview of the shoe being on the other foot.