Arizona’s latest contribution to the history of American bigotry is on Gov. Jan Brewer’s desk as I write, and the boycott beast is rumbling once more. The latest law creates a “religious freedom” exemption from public accommodations laws if businesses do not wish to serve gay people for religious reasons. Religious reasons? An exclusion from public accommodations law for religious reasons? Killing of American Indians, for scalp bounties or just in the process of robbing or raping, was backed up by “religious reasons.” Please search your history books for the Requerimiento. See also, the Valladolid debate of 1550-51, where the issue was the existence of humanity in American Indians according to the Christian God. Religious reasons? Enslaving of Africans proceeded with a firm foundation in Christian theology. See, in your history library, Arthur Lovejoy’s The Great Chain of Being: The History of an Idea. All of creation—animal, plant, and even mineral—is part of a hierarchy defined by “closeness to God,” and nonwhites are much farther from God than whites and therefore subject to the dominion of whites just as farm animals are subject to the dominion of humans. Religious reasons?Get the Story:
Steve Russell: Gays, Redskins & MLK: The U.S. Is Still Raising Arizona (Indian Country Today 2/25)
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