NH Representative Frank Sapareto: Giving Hate a Chance

The headline didn’t make any sense to me. “NH Bill Would Allow Service Refusal to Gay Couples”.

“What the hell?” I spoke aloud, reading further.

It turns out that New Hampshire lawmakers are DEBATING a bill that would let businesses refuse service to ANY couple for ANY reason.

“Okay” I said (again, out loud, incredulously and to myself in a creepy kinda multiple personality way) “that’s a stupid bill, but I guess that’s okay.”  So I do what any reasonable, interested citizen of the Union might do.  I look up it up.

New Hampshire HR1264 “Establishing a religious exemption for individuals who do not wish to provide accommodations, goods or services for marriages”.

Representative Sapareto

It’s sponsored by Representatives Bergevin, Duarte and Sapareto and reads as follows:

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person, including a business owner or employee thereof, shall be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges to an individual if the request is related to the solemnization, celebration, or promotion of a marriage and providing such services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges would be a violation of the person’s conscience or religious faith. A person’s refusal to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges in accordance with this section shall not create any civil claim or cause of action or result in any state action to penalize or withhold benefits from such person.”

Translation: “No one shall be required to provide services which celebrate the love between two people IF that love violates a person’s conscience or religious faith”.

“Hmmm” I hummed to myself , “surely this isn’t specifically singling out “marriage between two caring, loving people of the same sex”; it must be inclusive of OTHER marriages that might “violate a persons conscience or religious faith”.

And then I sat down with a pad of paper and pen to list all of the other types of marriages that might offend someone.

It was a friggin short list, let me tell you.

Let’s be honest here, there is ZERO room for DEBATE on this issue…because, in reading this bill there is one thing that is PERFECTLY clear. 

This has NOTHING to do with religious freedom.  This is nothing more than a LICENSE TO DISCRIMINATE. 

Now…I’m not an expert on the United States Constitution, I don’t know the intricate details of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; but I do know discrimination when I see it…and this, my friends, is exactly that: it stinks to HIGH HEAVEN of discrimination and hatred.

What Representatives Sapareto, Bergevin and Duarte are proposing is that New Hampshire citizens be given the right to express HATRED towards people who do not conform to whatever particular religious behavior they feel is sacred.

How is it possible that elected officials in the state of New Hampshire cannot see that even raising this issue and sponsoring this bill is an act of pure hatred?  From a strictly logical point of view, the answer is clear: They know damn well what they’re doing.  They love the idea.

When we promote laws that give citizens the legal right to discriminate against others, because of some presumed morally superior religious authority: we are nurturing hatred, encouraging homophobia, racism and an “us versus THEM” philosophy.  When we propose laws that allow, and promote the separation of one group of people from another: we are saying that “it’s okay to treat each other poorly because of who we are”.

HR1264 is a not so clever way of using the Freedom of Religion as an Excuse to Promote Hate.  I am embarrassed that I live in a country that includes a State that would propose such a law.  I am offended that there are three lawmakers in New Hampshire who feel that this is a good idea.

Representative Sapareto:

We do not need laws that enable hatred.  

We need laws that promote love.