Indiana Controversy A Sick Sign Of The Times

I've often felt I was born in the wrong era, but when I consider the public outcry over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA"), I'm almost convinced I was born on the wrong planet. The law in question allows, among other things, for vendors to refuse service to homosexuals on the basis of religious belief. Any society mouthing the virtues of private property, freedom of contract, and freedom of association would have only one criticism of such a law: that it doesn't go far enough. A free person can choose to do business with whomever he chooses and for whatever reason, regardless of whether that reason is religious or outright bigoted. For large portions of the American public to condemn this law as giving too much freedom or power to the vendors is sickening, and it displays a clear rejection of freedom in favor of slavery.

Consider the following two scenarios, and decide which one portrays an injustice:

1.  A person chooses of his own free will not to expend his time and labor to provide a good or service to someone else.

2. A person demands that someone else, against his will, expend his time and labor to provide a good or service.

There is no way that a moral, rational, or sane person can conclude that 1 is worse than 2. Yet this is what the prevailing mindset in America concludes while condemning anyone who even entertains the possibility of 1. As such, the prevailing mindset of modern America is immoral, irrational, and insane, QED.

The prevailing mindset is also unconstitutional, since the Thirteenth Amendment abolishes involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime. But moral, logical, and legal qualms have no purchase on a popular mind that is spoiled and impious. America is a victim of its own success. Like the dissolute children of wealthy parents, most Americans perceive every inconvenience or displeasure as an outrage. Our patrimony is dwindling because of this despicable mindset, which will vanish out of sheer necessity when the money is gone and there is no other choice.