When Maureen Mullarkey asked a Jewish jeweler to engrave a Hebrew verse from the biblical book of Ruth (“whither thou goest . . .”) on her wedding ring, he declined on the grounds that this particular verse was inappropriate for two Gentiles. Opponents of Indiana’s version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and similar laws, would take away his right to do so, as Mullarkey writes:
The rebuff was a sore letdown but we did not press. We deferred to [the jeweler’s] prohibition because, in some unspoken way, we understood. The story of Ruth is one of conversion that affirms the Jewish nation. It testifies to peoplehood. The intensity of this man’s concern to honor the sacred core of the text moved us. . . .
There was grace in his refusal. Had he granted me the words I craved, he would, in conscience, have violated the grandeur of them. Ruth’s commitment was not simply to another person but to a covenanted community bound together since the call of Abraham. Her words were his inheritance; he was not free to extend them to us. . . .
What innocents we were. It never entered our minds to challenge the denial. We took for granted the man’s moral right to refuse us; any legal issue, then, was irrelevant. But by today’s lights, we gave in too readily. We could have raised a stink. Demanded our rights as consumers. Bullied the vendor with accusations of anti-Christian bigotry. We did not have to submit to the discomfort of being told we were ineligible for what we desired.
“Something there is that does not love a wall, / That wants it down.” Pace [Robert] Frost, not every barrier should be cleared away. Not everything is permeable. A nation cannot survive without borders; no culture endures without limits. Walls provide a bulwark against chaos and dissolution.
Read more on First Things: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/mullarkey/2015/04/rfra-my-wedding-ring