This is an opinion column.

Picture this: Two men walk into a bar holding hands. They order drinks.

"We just got married," they tell the bar owner. "We're celebrating."

The bar owner looks them over and shakes his head.

"I don't serve your kind," he says. "It goes against my Christian beliefs."

Is this abhorrent, reminiscent of Jim Crow South? Yes.

Is something like this legal? In many places of Michigan, sadly, yes.

Nowhere on the state law books is there anything saying it's illegal to discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation. Municipalities can pass their own anti-discrimination laws - and about 40 cities and townships have. But in places where there are no local laws, bigots have free reign to fire someone, deny housing or refuse service based sexual orientation.

"It's 2016, we're going to have to accept the reality that gay people exist and gay people marry each other," said Rep. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, an openly gay member of the Michigan House.

I agree.

We need a state law to put an end to this and we need one fast. All that needs to be done is to expand our current Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act -- which prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, height, weight, national origin, age, familial status or marital status -- to include sexual orientation. Any efforts to get a bill passed in Lansing have been thwarted for one reason or another over the years.

This is a deplorable, retrograde stance for our state to have. It's bad for our image and bad for business.

The issue came up recently when an Eaton County orchard was called out for refusing to hold a same-sex wedding a few years ago. Caitlin Ortis posted a comment on Facebook recently saying that The Country Mill, an orchard in Benton Township, told her and her partner that "we don't do that here" when they inquired about having their wedding at the farm.

Steve Tennes, the farm's owner, has since ceased offering that service to anyone so he and his family can "maintain our religious beliefs and serve people of all backgrounds and beliefs."

Fair enough. At least he's now offering the same services to the general public.

But the scenario brings up our shameful lack of an anti-discrimination law, which conservative lawmakers like Rep. Gary Glenn, R-Larkin Township, are intent on maintaining.

"I sent them a message thanking them for their principled stand in defense of one-man-one-woman marriage," Glenn said about his reaction to the orchard story. "No one has the right to force any business to perform a certain function. The owners of a business obviously have a right to use their business or property in such a way that it's consistent with their sincerely held religious conviction. That's a clearly established right. There is no right to force a business to provide you services. It's not a question of competing rights."

Glenn says an anti-discrimination law protecting gay rights is tantamount to passing a law that discriminates against Christians who don't accept homosexuality. He said he fully supports a religious freedom bill akin to the one Indiana passed in recent years.

That is a terrifying prospect, one that would send Michigan back into the dark ages.

In an era when the majority of Americans in favor of gay marriage, conservatives like Glenn are preventing us from having the civil society we seek just so they can protect some primitive, restrictive, unenlightened view of human sexual behavior. They cite their religious beliefs, but I'm pretty sure Christ himself would be on the side of charity, tolerance and acceptance, not some narrow interpretation of the Bible that only serves to reinforce the inability to empathize with human beings of all stripes.

Daniel Levy, director of law and policy for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, said his organization has advocated for extending anti-discrimination laws to the LGBT community for years.

"This should be state law so people feel protected and are protected," he said. "When you go to a place to book a hall for a wedding, there's no reason why the hall should be asking who you're marrying, or what gender they are, any more than what color they are."

Amen.

Listen to the full conversations with the lawmakers here: