CNN has a story by Thomas Lake titled "Fear and voting on the Christian right" where he explores the way Republican politicians use the fear of government and homophobia to garner votes. The article in itself does not tell us anything new - the big clown-car of Republican politicians deluding themselves they are worthy to be president are chasing the votes of the ever dwindling ranks of the evangelical right wingers. And the only way to win the nomination is to see who cam outflank his opponents from the right, competing who can invoke god, Jesus and bible in a more hateful manner.
Lake's article meshes the grand political struggle with a personal story of Richard and Betty Odgaard that closed their wedding chapel bushiness after refusing to allow a gay wedding to take place. The public backlash was swift and fierce, their revenue fell and even their children told them they are wrong.
It is an interesting story about paranoia,self righteousness, hypocrisy and the bitchiness of karma.
Jared Ellars and Lee Stafford' request for a wedding celebration (not reigious ceremony, mind you, just the party) at Görtz Haus was denied by owner Richard Odgaard
"Because of our faith," Richard remembers saying, "we cannot participate."
Lee and Jared don't remember hearing that. But all three men give roughly the same version of what Richard said next:
"I can't take your money, and I don't do anything for free."
That's the first thing that struck me in this article - the notion of "Not doing anything for free". How.... Republican and UnChristian. I though that Religion supposed to teach you that you should give away many things for free, mostly giving one's love and not being a judgmental prick. Not to be found in Odgaard's heart.
Oh and by the way - Who asked you to participate? It's not like they invited you to be a guest. Just rent out the damn space and go on a vacation that day.
Lee and Jared left the wedding chapel and walked to the parking lot. Jared felt as if he'd been kicked in the stomach. They got in the Camaro and drove seven miles to Living History Farms in Urbandale, another potential site for the ceremony. This time Lee tried a new approach.
"This is gonna be for a same-sex wedding," he told the woman giving the tour. "Is that gonna be a problem? 'Cause we wanna know right up front."
"No," she said, and they made a deal.
See, Mr. Oddgard? This is how
a business should behave - providing its services to anyone - and not for free, by the way. Because it is a business - not a church.
And here is where the bitchiness of karma is revealed for the first time - the conflation of business and religion. It is not that RW evangelicals are the originator of this conflation, but they have elevated it to an art form. Because when you run your religion as business - don't be surprised that your business is decimated due to your intolerant out-of-step religious beliefs. The owner of Living History Farms apparently understands this difference and one business made a deal and the other lost it.
One business flourishes and the other, well, not so much.
(I added the link to LHF because when a business does something good, traffic should be pointed in its direction).
Still, the incident with Richard Odgaard kept bothering them. Lee would later compare it to being swindled by a car salesman. He thought he should warn his friends. And so he went to Facebook, wrote the story, and hit "Post." Friends shared it with other friends, and those friends shared it with more friends. Word got around.
The Odgaards drove 200 miles to eastern Kansas that night to visit a niece who was dying of brain cancer. When Richard checked his phone, he saw an e-mail from a loyal customer and fellow businessman in Grimes. As Richard recalls, "His advice to us was, 'You've made a lot of people mad. I would strongly advise that you call this couple back ... tell them that you'll provide the venue at no charge. With a service that will — like they've never dreamed would happen. Because if you don't, they'll try to shut you down.' "
[...]
Richard Odgaard had a regular job as a veterinarian in the livestock industry, but in the week after turning away the two men he stationed himself at the Görtz Haus so he could answer the phone there. "It was badly affecting our help," he recalled. "Because they were — they would pick up the phone and just absolutely get cursed up one side and down the other." Lunchtime revenue fell by half; wedding requests dwindled. Longtime customers said they would never visit again.
And this is where Karma strikes again. For years and years the LGBT community suffered through abuse (cursing was the least of it). Most of the persecution was done by people like the Odgaards who, if not actively abusing gay people, treated them as worse than criminals (charges of pedophilia are common). And now they are on the receiving end of the same type of abuse.
While I definitely do not condone any type of abuse and bullying, this shows us how radically the tables have turned. People are not afraid anymore to identify themselves with the LGBT community, to take action (even wrong one) and air their opinion publicly when they see injustice done.
Betty cried every day for the first month, watching her business decay, wishing she could leave town and never come back. Both the Odgaards had been married and divorced before they met each other, and between them they have five grown children. Three of the five told them they were wrong about same-sex marriage and urged them to change their minds. Richard and Betty refused. Even when they didn't talk about it, the issue seemed to hang over family gatherings like a thundercloud.
Karma rears its head. RW Evangelicals anti-gay hatred is responsible for many many broken families where parents threw their own children on to the streets, forced them to undergo traumatic "gay conversion treatment" and drove many young people to take their own lives. and As a parent of two wonderful children such kind of hatred just boggles the mind. At least in the Odgaard's case it seems three of their children managed to escape the clutches of homophobia, but this family will never be the same again.
Also, going back to the first karma's assault - when you make the free market your god, then businesses have to act according to the free market - and when they don't (upset the consumer base) they will be shut down.
"In talking to them privately," Richard says, "you knew where they stood, but they didn't want to be seen supporting us. Because they would've been thrown into the same category as us."
"And people would call them haters and bigots," Betty says.
Well, because they ARE. Maybe someone should send them a dictionary or something. See - it is that simple. If you discriminate and hate gays than you are a hater and a bigot. The last resort of the bigot that sees his tenuous hold on power slipping away: most people think like me but they are afraid. It is a grand conspiracy to crush me. I am the martyr in this story.
The Odgaards sued the Civil Rights Commission in district court. A judge threw it out. The Odgaards appealed. The Civil Rights Commission found evidence of discrimination. The Odgaards dropped their appeal. They had to pay Lee and Jared $5,000, which Lee and Jared donated to a charity that fights school bullying.
"Now it was public what our response would be if a gay couple walked in for a wedding ceremony," Richard says. "So it was walk into the Görtz Haus, be declined, file a complaint and collect money. I mean, we set that precedent. Quite that simple. We had no choice but to get out of the business."
And now the final karma karate chop. For years the RW evangelicals manipulated and corrupted the legislative and judicial processes to block any progress towards equality and civil rights to ALL American citizens. Now that society has changed and with it the laws of this land, the bigots cannot find any quarter for their bigotry - or at least the space where such bigotry is accepted is rapidly diminishing.
Are we at the end of the journey that ends in full LGBT equality? The simple and obvious answer is NO. However, stories like this indicate that we might be seeing the finish line. The Odgaards are a dying breed, History, Society at large, their customers and even some of their family left them by the wayside like the unwanted furniture we leave behind when we move on. They are quickly becoming an anachronism, something that will be displayed in museums under the banner of "The dark times - how we used to be".
And this is a good thing.
Dartagnan brought important info about this couple. Apparently, and not surprisingly, they are pulling a "Kim Davis", trying to capitalise on their new found RW celebrity and keep fighting this losing battle for the glory of their (what else) bank account.