Wedding Cake, Bathrooms and the Golden Rule: To the Christian Right, It All Depends on How You Define Neighbor

Ain’t nobody got no love for nobody no more.
This was the heartbreaking assessment of one of the more colorful denizens of a park near my home. After giving him a couple of dollars, I began to think about the Golden Rule and how it may be losing its value as a touchstone for the nation’s moral character.
The Golden Rule, the age-old idea that we should treat each other like we want to be treated, is under continuous assault by the Christian Right, the very people who should be defending its value as the definitive guide for moral and ethical behavior.
Our parents, our teachers and, more importantly our religious leaders once promoted the Golden Rule to foster mutual respect and aid. Recent events, however, reveal how the Christian Right’s toxic religiosity, the same damaging force motivating radical Islam, is unraveling the fabric of civil society.
Take the case of Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker and a Christian conservative, whose religious objections to same-sex marriage are at the center of a discrimination suit the Supreme Court will hear this fall. Mr. Phillips refused to create a wedding cake to celebrate the marriage of two men, David Mullins and Charlie Craig. Mullins and Craig won their discrimination case against Phillips before a civil rights commission and in the lower courts.
Mr. Phillips, who will appeal his case to the Supreme Court, maintains his faith requires him to “use his talents to promote only messages that align with his beliefs” and cites religious objections as the reason for his refusal to create the wedding cake for the couple.
Mr. Phillips is not alone.
According to a 2016 Pew Center Survey, more than 60% of Protestants believe that businesses providing wedding services should be able to refuse those services to same-sex couples on religious grounds. Almost 60% of Protestants believe transgender people should be required to use the restrooms of their birth gender.
For Catholics, the tendencies aren’t as strident, but there is a large number that feel their Christian beliefs do not align with providing wedding services to same-sex couples or allowing transgender people to choose which bathroom they deem appropriate.
As an African American, I’m appalled at the weak support of African American respondents for the civil rights of gays and transgendered people. Almost half of African-American Protestants support the refusal of services and restrictions on bathrooms. It seems the African-American experience in fighting for marriage equality and the elimination of separate-but-equal has not been an effective teacher of the Golden Rule.
This month Texas lawmakers are gathering in Austin for a special 30-day session to decide whether to pass the Texas version of North Carolina’s Bathroom Bill. Under pressure from the Christian Right, Republican legislators designed a bill to restrict access of transgender people to public bathrooms designated for their birth gender. Despite the potential of devastating economic consequences that beset North Carolina, the Christian Right is already threatening to punish Republican legislators who don’t support the initiative.
Like Islamic fundamentalists, the toxic religiosity of the Christian Right has little to do with the religious foundations of their faith. Christian Right organizations like the Alliance for Defending Freedom and the Liberty Counsel, both considered hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, argue that the First Amendment — religious freedom and freedom of expression — overrides anti-discrimination laws. In reality, these organizations resort to secular courts and legislatures because the Bible doesn’t support their decidedly un-Christian behavior.
The growth of Christianity popularized the Golden Rule, but the idea of treating others the way you want to be treated underpins nearly every religious, ethical and legal tradition. For Jesus, the precept to love your neighbor and treat them like you want to be treated is the summation of the Old Testament and the foundation of the New. But he wasn’t the first to promote the idea. Rabbi Hillel promoted the Golden Rule in the first century B.C and Confucius served up the idea in 500 BC. This centuries old guideline for behavior even appears in Islamic and ancient Sanskrit texts.
At its heart, Golden Rule is about empathy. If I can imagine walking a mile my neighbor’s shoes and they can imagine walking a mile in mine, then we have a chance of identifying with each other’s humanity and aiding each other when the need arises. Without some type of empathetic reciprocity, society would not be able to exist.
The Golden Rule is essential to what it means to be human and humane.
Toxic religiosity has a long history of using the religious beliefs to define justify the unjustifiable, including slavery, violence against women, the prohibition against interracial marriage, and Jim Crow, and the Christian Right devalues the Golden Rule by qualifying who deserves to be called their neighbor and who doesn’t.
Ironically, a lawyer in the Bible puts Jesus to the test on this issue and the parable of the Good Samaritan is his response. In this story, Jesus is unequivocal: a neighbor is anyone in need, including those who think, act and live in ways that are different from us.
The Bible may be filled with inconsistencies, but Jesus is clear: Mr. Phillips sell wedding cakes to anyone who is willing to pay for them and legislators should only worry about which bathroom to use when they have to pee.
Jesus even ups the ante with what I call the Platinum Rule, which calls on his followers not only to love their neighbors, but to also love their enemies.
In Mathew 5:43–44, Jesus articulates his most original and distinctive piece of ethical and moral guidance:
Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy:
but I say unto you, love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you;
The Golden Rule is essential to what it means to be human, humane and Christian. Unfortunately, most Christians, especially the Christian Right will never buy into the Platinum Rule.
Hey, I’m not greedy. I’ll gladly settle for gold.
