Christian martyr or Christian bigot? That is the dichotomy with which we are presented vis a vis a formerly faceless small-town bureaucrat turned celebrity. The presidential election is a mere 14 months away, so the media is striking while the iron is hot to polarize the nation which has considerably less polarity than we’re all led to believe. On the left, that means one must come down against the bigotry of the right, of the Old Time Religion. Standing up for one’s principles is all well and good, except when it’s something I personally oppose. Then it’s insufferable. On the right, one must stand stalwartly for petty acts of bureaucratic dickery that don’t actually make a substantive point of principle, but merely ruin a day or two for a couple folks who just want a form filed. The lines have been drawn. Pick a side. To the credit of many citizens, and to dispel the rumors–that dog me so–that I am a misanthrope, I think most people have the sense not to give a damn. Nonetheless, the issue as presented is still making the rounds in the places where events of the day are discussed.
What is implicit in the discussion is the bureaucrat’s religiosity: she is standing up for Good Christian Values TM. Therefore, allegiance to or opposition to this woman is a proxy for one’s allegiance or opposition to religious devotion… or vice versa. It’s a nice way to boil down a much lengthier conversation into a quick one. If the woman is a hypocrite, Christianity is frivolous. If Christianity is important, than this individual’s actions are owed support. For one, that’s a stupid way to argue. Christianity as a whole and the actions of any given Christian–excepting perhaps Jesus–are two completely different subjects.
But what if that premise is faulty? Allow me to submit that it is not her faith that has caused this situation, but her lack of faith. She denied those licenses not because she was acting in good faith, but because of her agnosticism. Her arrest was not a martyrdom effected by an unyielding faith that she was fighting for the Truth. A true martyr would go to their grizzly demise even if no one were to know. This was a public spectacle. This was not an act of a martyr secure in her faith, this was an act of a soul insecure in her faith. In spite of her religious background, she still has doubts. Hers are the actions of someone unsure of their lot in life. She has not found sufficient comfort and meaning in her faith, and she is lashing out in her desperation. Something to find meaning. She doesn’t know where to get it, so she turns to religion, like most of our species has and does. But her faith is wanting, at least in some meaningful way, so she latches on to some trapping, some symbol of the religion–in the old days, this was called fetishism (seriously). Gay marriage is a religious hot-button, and something she can seemingly attach herself to in a significant way. So she did. She was a pain in the ass to some folks who are legally entitled to a marriage certificate from her office. Hardly an act of faith in spite of oppression. But she dug in her heels because this is all she feels she has. That’s her legacy. That’s her lasting mark on the world she will only inhabit for a finite, fleeting moment. Her life seems to her so bereft of meaning that “be a jerk to gays” looked like a viable salve for her existential wounds.
We look on our subject with our objectivity and scoff rightfully. It’s a puerile farce, like a child acting up in school. Negative attention is still attention. And yet we give her the attention she craves. There are people who prey on our maternal neuroticism to our wayward child. The media and politicians in their psychopathy are obliged to stoke our visceral reactions for profit. But that does not exculpate us; we still allow it. In some ways, it is a failure on all our parts. Religion never gave her enough for her psyche to latch onto. Maybe the stories weren’t convincing enough; maybe the brotherly love we have all been enjoined to provide to all God’s children has been lacking. The secular culture apparently came up short as well. We’re alone on a tiny blue mote hurling aimlessly through space, and all we have is each other, but we could not convey to her a way she would matter to us. Still though, this person has accountability to herself, to find meaning in her life without bringing down others. And she couldn’t. Does she deserve no pity? Perhaps my suggestion to ignore her is too cruel. All she wants to do is matter. And that is no easy task. We proffer her no real advice, we merely feed her misguided desperation. Is it that we don’t have any real advice to offer? For to do so, we would have to look deep inside our souls and ask ourselves what it is to live a meaningful life. Are we? Can we be sure? But these are such hard questions to answer. It is much easier to judge her instead. It is not our sins we concern ourselves with, it is some faceless Other’s. How then do we live with ourselves?