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Religious Freedom & ‘Gay Marriage’ Cannot Coexist
Townhall ^ | 04/15/2013 | Matt Barber

Posted on 04/15/2013 7:29:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. – Psalm 73:6

“Gay pride” necessitates anti-Christian hate. It must. “Gay marriage” and other “sexual orientation”-based laws do violence to freedom and truth. They are the hammer with which the postmodern left intends to bludgeon bloody religious liberty and the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.

According to the unequivocal moral precepts of the Judeo-Christian tradition – explicit throughout both the Old and New Testaments – homosexual behavior is a sin. Sin is evil. Homosexual behavior is the central, defining characteristic of so-called “gay marriage.” Therefore, “gay marriage” is evil. Christians are obligated to avoid sin – to “do no evil.”

I know; it’s not popular to speak such simple truths in today’s politically correct world. But I’m not out to win a popularity contest.

Neither is Ms. Barronelle Stutzman. Ms. Stutzman is the Christian owner-operator of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Wash. She is, by all accounts, a lovely, sweet, elderly woman who both employs and regularly serves open practitioners of the homosexual lifestyle. Sadly, she has become the latest victim in a fast-growing string of secularist attacks against Christians and other morally minded people. If “same-sex marriage” becomes the law of the land, I can assure you that we will soon see a virtual explosion in the same kind of anti-Christian persecution Ms. Stutzman now suffers.

Recently, one of Ms. Stutzman’s frequent homosexual customers requested that she provide flower arrangements for his same-sex “wedding.” She politely declined, saying that her Christian conscience and “relationship with Jesus Christ” prevented her from any involvement with counter-Christian “same-sex marriage.” She was, quite simply, a Christian being Christian. The two hugged and parted ways.

Unfortunately, in our ever-”progressive” culture, being Christian has fast become a most dangerous proposition. As each homofascist demand is checked from liberals’ sin-centric wish list, it only gets worse.

As a result of her constitutionally guaranteed religious free exercise, Washington State’s newly elected Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed charges against Ms. Stutzman, seeking both a monetary judgment and an injunction to physically force her to violate her Christian conscience. He would compel her to either lend her artistic expression in support of counterfeit “gay marriage” – something Christianity steadfastly recognizes as mortal sin – or face further charges.

Speaking of steadfast, to her credit, Ms. Stutzman has stood firm. She has refused to cave under Ferguson’s tyrannical torment. Ferguson, on the other hand, has revealed himself a creep and a coward – a “progressive” bully who apparently gets off on abusing elderly women. He’s a disgrace to Washington State and should be thrown out of office and disbarred.

Still, this type of government persecution must be expected. Ferguson is a liberal. The liberal viewpoint is that any viewpoint, save the liberal viewpoint, must be criminalized and prosecuted.

Like many of us, Joseph Backholm, with the Family Policy Institute of Washington, has long warned about the consequences of radically deconstructing the institution of natural marriage. “Now that the law says marriage is genderless,” he recently wrote of Ms. Stutzman’s ongoing abuse, “those who think otherwise [must] … conform or be punished. … Now liberals believe they are legally entitled to someone else’s labor.”

To homosexuals I say this: Yes, you are equal in God’s eyes. You are loved. These things are true, not because of your homosexual lifestyle, but, rather, they are true in spite of it.

Most homosexuals know intuitively, I think, that their lifestyle is unnatural and immoral and that the oxymoronic notion of “same-sex marriage” is a silly farce. Thus, they must force others to affirm both their self-destructive lifestyle and their mock “marriages” under penalty of law. They must physically compel everyone to engage their “emperor’s new clothes” delusion, so they can feel better about bad behavior.

Well, my friend, making everyone else “call evil good and good evil” won’t fill that dark void in your soul. Only repentance and redemption through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can do that.

When we give deviant sexual conduct preferred status in law, Christian morality becomes illegal. If you think government-recognized “gay marriage” is harmless to society, you’re playing the fool. It places the Christian sexual ethic and free exercise of religion in direct conflict with law. It’s my sense that many liberty-minded people are finally coming awake to this disturbing reality.

Although we all sin, Christians are commanded to neither support nor engage in evil. Hence, Christians – true Christians – cannot engage in nor condone the unrepentant practice of homosexual behavior. Neither can we support sin-centric “gay marriage.”

This rudimentary equation is built upon the natural laws of moral physics. Christianity is magnetically charged truth. Homosexual behavior is a magnetically charged lie – a spiritual and biological falsehood. Christianity and homosexual sin are as north to south. Polar opposites cannot occupy the same position in time and space. They repel one another. It’s physically, spiritually and legally impossible for religious freedom and preferred legal status for sexual sin to coexist in harmony. Ms. Stutzman’s persecution is just the latest example of this timeless reality.

Why are Christians so afraid to call sin sin? It’s time for invertebrate believers to grow a backbone. Truth, in love, is the balance. Yes, the world will hate you, because it first hated Christ. So what? Count it a blessing – even unto death.

Here’s my recommendation: When those who are lost to the world hate on you, laugh at them. Then cry for them. Then pray for them. Follow Christ’s example and ask, as did He, that God “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Then get up, dust yourself off and get back in the fight.

Albert Einstein once said, “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”

He was right.

Barronelle Stutzman followed this advice and – though she currently faces government persecution for her choice – she has also become an accidental hero. Pray for her. I know God will surely bless her faithfulness.

Still, know this: If you are a Christian in today’s America, you too will almost certainly find yourself with a similar decision to make. When man’s law violates God’s law, you will have to choose which to obey. Choosing God can mean persecution.

I’ve made my choice.

How will you choose?


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: gaymarriage; homosexualagenda; homosexuality; religiousfreedom; ssm
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To: Coldwater Creek
Again! America has looked EVIL in the face and embraced it. I look for more and more “Christian” leaders to capitulate to the other side

Our church pastor spoke about it Sunday. He said we can choose to follow the "God we want" or the "God that is." The God That Is, through Paul, very clearly states His position against homosexuality (Romans 1:26-27).

21 posted on 04/15/2013 8:04:47 AM PDT by ScottinVA (Gun control: Steady firm grip, target within sights, squeeze the trigger slowly...)
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To: Westbrook

“Religious Freedom & ‘Gay Marriage’ Cannot Coexist”

Yup, and only one of them is mentioned in the constitution.


22 posted on 04/15/2013 8:05:54 AM PDT by READINABLUESTATE ("We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately." - Franklin)
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To: Coldwater Creek

“I disagree. Most “Christians” are simply to apathetic to care. God has always worked with a remnant.”

That and keep a close eye on the growing “global south” Christians, who are or will send missionaries to the west to do what the west did years ago to the global south, send missionaries to bring the good news of the Gospel of Jesus.


23 posted on 04/15/2013 8:07:21 AM PDT by Biggirl ("Jesus talked to us as individuals"-Jim Vicevich/Thanks JimV!)
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To: ScottinVA

The “god we want” is simply an idol.

And this is the “for this reason” mentioned in Romans 1.


24 posted on 04/15/2013 8:07:25 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: SeekAndFind
What if you're like me and believe homosexuality is a mental disorder? Only about 2-3% of people are homosexuals making it a highly aberrant type of behavior just by statistics.

The belief of all the pro-homosexual marriage people is that homosexuality is the equal of heterosexuality...just a different kind of sexual choice. If that were true, then nobody would be upset if their children were homosexual. If they could have a choice whether their child was a homo or a hetero, how many heteros would choose homo? How about zero percent would choose that. And if like a number of researchers say homosexuality is determined in the womb by the overproduction of male or female hormones, then correcting that overproduction would eliminate homosexuality.

In short, you are then saying homosexuality is a medical condition/disorder that is correctable. And if you have a disorder and are able to correct it, why wouldn't you? But what you don't do is to say it is a desirable condition and promote it by allowing messed up people i.e. homosexuals to "marry" or adopt children.

25 posted on 04/15/2013 8:07:29 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: SeekAndFind
As a result of her constitutionally guaranteed religious free exercise, Washington State’s newly elected Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed charges against Ms. Stutzman, seeking both a monetary judgment and an injunction to physically force her to violate her Christian conscience. He would compel her to either lend her artistic expression in support of counterfeit “gay marriage” – something Christianity steadfastly recognizes as mortal sin – or face further charges.

An important history told in the (Sophie Scholl) movie shows how people were persecuted for their beliefs....Ms. Stutzman is sort of a parable to Sophie Schull and those times, now beginning to appear in America from the left....'perverts' come in many guises including Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

Roland Freisler (Attorney General Ferguson) was a prominent and notorious Nazi lawyer and judge.

26 posted on 04/15/2013 8:08:46 AM PDT by yoe
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To: driftless2

RE: What if you’re like me and believe homosexuality is a mental disorder?

According to the latest PC definition, YOU are the one who has a mental ( and a moral ) disorder, not the homosexual.

And the liberals will defend it by citing the fact that the American Psychiatric Association has taken it off their “disorder” list.


27 posted on 04/15/2013 8:09:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Yes, I know...that was more than forty years ago. I didn’t agree with it then either. Nobody is going to convince the human anus was designed for sexual intercourse, the main method of sex for male homosexuals. Not even a roomful of shrinks...especially not a roomful of shrinks.


28 posted on 04/15/2013 8:20:09 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: MrB

It all started BIG TIME, when the sodomite in chief, Mr. bathhouse himself, said he had “evolved” on sodomite “marriage”. Like it or not, Americans still look to the president to set the example, to set the tone of the nation. When the president of the United States REFUSES to enforce the Federal Law, mandated by the US Congress, called the Defense of Marriage Act, which says marriage is an institution of one man and one woman, he should have been impeached. No president can pick and choose what laws he’s going to enforce. But he’s treated like a king, so he gets by with any thing he feels like doing. He even had the gall to say his “God” (what God???), compelled him to come to his decision on queer “marriage”. That is the crux of the problem folks. Elections have consequences and we now four more long years, of a Bible-hating socialist setting the “example” for the the rest of the nation. If that SOB had not been reelected, this queer “marriage” garbage would have gotten no where. His four and a half years as “president” of this country have been a nightmare and will only get worse.


29 posted on 04/15/2013 8:24:22 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
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To: SeekAndFind

Don’t forget, they just wanted government out of their bedrooms when this all began.


30 posted on 04/15/2013 8:24:48 AM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
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To: MrB

Exactly. Sodomy has been the efficient tool in a so-called democratic republic for encroaching upon Christianity. It’s noticeable that no Islamic business has yet been subject to one of these lawsuits.


31 posted on 04/15/2013 8:28:49 AM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
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To: Baynative

Homofascist Washington ping (since the article refers to Washington AG Ferguson subverting the power of the state to punish a Christian for practicing her faith).


32 posted on 04/15/2013 8:30:29 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: SeekAndFind

2 Timothy 4:3 is apropos:

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires.


33 posted on 04/15/2013 8:44:54 AM PDT by Kanrok
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To: SeekAndFind

The APA has ZERO credibility on anything.

Believing you are multiple people trapped in the body of one person is a mental disorder

Believing you are a woman trapped in a man’s body is not a mental disorder.

PURE POLITICS.


34 posted on 04/15/2013 8:50:07 AM PDT by Viennacon
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To: Coldwater Creek
I disagree. Most “Christians” are simply to apathetic to care.

Rush Limbaugh might call these - low information Christians.

35 posted on 04/15/2013 9:17:34 AM PDT by aimhigh ( Guns do not kill people. Abortion kills people.)
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To: SeekAndFind

While the article is morally and religiously correct, the “magnetic” analogy is 100% wrong. Opposite poles attract each other, identical poles repel.


36 posted on 04/15/2013 9:28:58 AM PDT by jimt (Fear is the darkroom where negatives are developed.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“He explained that “Same-sex couples should have the right to civil marriage. “

so sodomites have a superior right to redefine marriage than the rest of us? What about Zoophilia, or poligimany, or you going to extent the same ‘right’ to refashion the tool of ‘marriage’ to suit thoses folk’s desires?

Isent anyone concerned about the people who actually need marriage to be a marriage?

Why can’t the state simply let theses people fashion their own institution for whatever sinful propose they have? Why must the State facilitate their efforts to hijack anther institution designed for a very specific propose which they obviously have as little interest in as their coupling has capability?

It is quite obviously theses people who desire to violate our rights by hijacking and refashioning our institution to suit their needs as apposed to ours.


37 posted on 04/15/2013 10:09:23 AM PDT by Monorprise (`)
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To: Monorprise

RE: so sodomites have a superior right to redefine marriage than the rest of us?

If it were only limited to them, this would not be a problem. The problem lies in the HUGE non-homosexual populace who are willing to placate them and support their cause ( see Portman, Rob and Olson, Ted for instance ).


38 posted on 04/15/2013 10:12:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

This is exactly the goal. Gay marriage is not illegal in this country and if one wanted to keep the government out of it then that is exactly what DOMA does it keeps the federal government from recognizing gay marriage. Its not an equality issue its a deconstruction issue. Deconstruct the church, deconstruct the family, deconstruct what is deemed to be normal sexuality and replace these institutions with bigger government. Why a government is big enough to redefine marriage it is big enough to do anything and it has proved it will. Where SSM takes root you see lgbt indoctrination being forced into classrooms, grade school kids are educated on multiple sexualities and encouraged to hold mock same sex marriages and that its ok for princesses to marry other princesses and princes to marry princes. They also use this to deconstruct maleness.

Those that embrace ssm and gay activism are not conservatives they are traitors.


39 posted on 04/15/2013 10:20:53 AM PDT by Maelstorm (This country wasn't founded with the battle cry "Give me liberty or give me a govt check!")
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To: SeekAndFind

Well then perhaps the court should just make it clear that if they do this then marriage as we know it is dead to the Federal Government. Its just a contractual relationship that no more represents marriage than any others.

That to uses the name marriage for this contractual relationship is itself an paramount to reasoning and an assault upon the culture & institution of others.

Meanwhile good christian & others would be wise to be looking to recreate the real institution of marriage in their own institutions.

Base this recreation upon the original definition, bounds & limits of marriage. No divorce, and centered upon children.

Hopefully the majority of us should be able to avoid persecution such as other good christian are being made subject to in liberal states for not embracing sodomy.


40 posted on 04/15/2013 10:31:35 AM PDT by Monorprise (`)
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