But it’s a basic rule that once a new government power is established, it will be expanded to its logical limit, and usually beyond. From the beginning, anti-discrimination laws were an infringement on the right of free association, and we’re now starting to appreciate the damage they did to that principle. What we’re discovering is that, when they are applied broadly and with full logical consistency, anti-discrimination laws are incompatible with free association, free speech, and religious freedom. They interfere with the individual’s right to decide who he will do business with, how he can express his views on current political controversies, and whether he can live according to his deepest religious convictions. In the case of gay marriage, it’s about whether Christians can state and act on something that has been an unquestioned tenet of their religion from its founding up until a few years ago. You could hardly come up with a more cut-and-dried violation of religious freedom.
But the problem is not just the legal precedent set by these laws. It’s the mindset behind them. Anti-discrimination laws ingrained the attitude that if someone is really, really bad and unsympathetic, he has no rights worth considering. The government can just force him to do the right thing because his views are repugnant. And who are you to defend him? If you think he has rights, you must have repugnant views, too.
We’ve been trained in the attitude that freedom and tolerance are reserved only for good people we like. But that empties the concepts of any meaning. Freedom to do only what others approve of is not freedom. Tolerance only of ideas most people like is not tolerance. The anti-discrimination laws have helped obliterate any concept of the right to be wrong, of freedom for those the majority regards as outside acceptable bounds.
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