Fiddling with the law

In a few short weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider the question of whether laws in states like Louisiana, which bar same-sex couples from marrying, or from having their marriages in other states recognized, are constitutional.

The debate over the issue, unimaginable a few years back, is about to be resolved one way or the other.

Two local couples – or one local couple and half of a New Orleans couple – are among the people who have litigated against this state and others to have the right to marry, or to be recognized as a married couple, affirmed.

The arguments on both sides – not only legally but socially – have been rigorously presented by all parties in the lower courts, in the coffee-houses, on the streets and certainly on television, radio and newspapers.

That’s not to mention social networking and other forms of Internet communication.

When the High Court makes its decision Louisiana will have to abide by the law, even if the justices side with those who desire marriage. This, despite our dismal history of responding to federal court orders with speed that 45 degrees beyond deliberate, often best described as kicking and screaming.

But even now, as this emotional issue nears its greatest test, some people can’t leave well enough alone.

State Rep. Mike Johnson R-Benton is among these. It is Benton who has filed a bill called the Marriage and Conscience Act.

It seeks to protect individuals or groups from state action against being taken against them on the basis of their beliefs about marriage, or more narrowly, who should be married and to whom. The proposed law is really a bit more complex than that, but in a general sense that’s what it boils down to.

This comes at a time when the nation has focused on the state of Indiana, and its woes with a bill that covered similar content. People across the country pointed fingers at Indiana as a potentially hotbed of bigotry and so the bill was heavily modified at the request of the governor.

The almighty dollar was threatened in Indiana, so something had to be done before sports teams, businesses and even individuals stopped traveling there as a show of protest.

Things often go this way. While we won’t alter our official courses intentionally to further the causes of equality, fairness or justice, we can and will do so when commerce matters.

Now back to Louisiana, where we already have a bill similar to what Indiana had proposed on the books, proposed and passed in 2010.

Nobody made that much of a fuss.

The bill was passed without the microscope that now gazes at anything having to do with marriage and some peoples’ religious beliefs, so not so much.

But the Johnson bill, that occurs in a climate already moist with the humidity generated by the same-sex marriage front.

The die has already been cast for the national-level debates because of Indiana, in this state where the governor appears more attuned to Birmingham or Boston – more specifically Iowa or New Hampshire – than he is with issues in Houma or Baton Rouge.

Already Gov. Jindal has taken to the talk show circuit, professing to defend religious freedom a la Johnson, but not saying much of substance other than talking points designed to cozy him up to the Republican Party’s extreme right.

What Indiana and now Louisiana – as well as other states engaged in these discussions – fail to take into account is that their own constitutions, as well as the Constitution of the United States – freedom of speech and religion are guaranteed, though not always in the way extremists on either side of the spectrum would prefer.

That the Johnson bill seeks to elevate protection of speech – more importantly specific speech laced with references to religious beliefs – to another level would appear disingenuous.

Gov. Jindal himself has said, as recently as last weekend, that he is uncomfortable with legislation that protects gay people and others from job or housing discrimination because he does not favor laws that create special classes of people is proof of this.

It boils down to a simple matter of attention being forced on an issue that is ripe for resolution in the judicial branch, and is due to be resolved shortly, at the same time Louisiana is playing with fire in its attempts to undue budget woes brought about by years of robbing Peter and paying Paul.

Which means the governor’s highly touted television appearances in the name of “religious freedom” become yet another example of Nero fiddling while Rome burns.