Posted on 03/04/2014 8:10:30 AM PST by Kaslin
In Arizona has come a test of the motto conservative Christians like to invoke: "Hate the sin, love the sinner."
Republican Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed the "religious freedom bill" passed by the Republican legislature. While there is no mention in the bill of same-sex marriage, or even homosexuals, most people believe same-sex marriage and homosexuals were the targets of the proposed law.
Proponents asserted Senate Bill 1062 was written to protect the "free exercise of religion" for businesses and their employees. U.S. citizens already enjoy that protection under the First Amendment, but the bill's backers believed that further protections were needed due to the aggressive posture taken by many gay rights advocates pushing for legal and societal approval of same-sex marriage.
In her veto announcement, Gov. Brewer said, "Religious liberty is a core American and Arizona value -- so is nondiscrimination."
Sometimes these values are in conflict, as with the Arizona legislation and the Obama administration's attempt to impose its contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act on Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor.
There are legal challenges to religious conscience in other states, including New Mexico, where a photography company refused to take pictures at a gay couple's civil-commitment ceremony and Oregon, where a bakery refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. After protests, that bakery closed its storefront, only to re-open almost immediately as an in-home bakery.
Clearly, conservative Christian values are under assault in today's culture. But two other points should be made. One is the danger when one's faith is forced on people who do not share it. The second is that people who don't share those religious beliefs err when they seek to force people of faith to embrace their beliefs and practices. Balance and humility ought to be pursued by both sides.
Let us recall our history. Religion was once wrongly used by some to condemn interracial marriage. In some churches, the Bible was misused to justify countless forms of discrimination against African Americans. Women, too, were thought by some Christians to be inferior to men and, therefore, it was believed just to deny them the same rights and privileges enjoyed by men. The Bible was sometimes employed to keep women from voting, establishing credit or owning property. Women were to be "submissive" to their husbands, thereby inhibiting their demands for the vote and their calls for gender equality.
The biblical thing to do for the Oregon cake business was to bake the cake for the gay couple. If businesses can refuse to serve such people based on the religious beliefs of its owners or employees, they wouldn't be in business very long.
Then there's the flip side. Should Muslim women be forced to go without their bodies and heads covered because an employer of another faith demands it? Should a Catholic priest be required to marry a divorced couple, if he abides by his church's fundamental tenets? You see where this can lead? Virtually every decision about competing interests requires that one belief will be "discriminated against."
There is a higher law and it incorporates grace and mercy. When offered the opportunity to condemn "the woman taken in adultery," Jesus, faced by her angry accusers, bent down and started to write in the dirt with his finger (John 8:2-11) before saying, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Slowly the crowd drifted away. After the crowd was gone, Jesus turned to the woman and asked:
"Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
"No one, Lord," she replied.
"Neither do I condemn you," he declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
Conservative Christians should not be in the condemnation business, but in the restoration business.
The Christian bakers who refused to bake the cake might have used their opportunity to tell the gay couple about the God who loves them more then they could ever love each other. That would have been a proper -- and biblical -- exercise of their faith and religious freedom under the First Amendment's free speech clause.
Moron.
First they come for the believers then they come for the Churches. Will Catholic priests be required to marry same sex couples or be charged with discrimination?
Old Cal is merely whistling past the graveyard.
Ahhh, the story of Jesus and the adulteress women. Liberals favorite bible story and the one they LOVE to use to hammer Christians over the head any time they attempt to even meekly condemn anything as sinful....Except they completely misinterpret it. For one thing the entire incident wasn't a parable to teach a moral lesson, it was an actual event, a "trap" that was arranged by the Pharisees in an attempt to put Jesus in a no win situation. If Jesus had condemned the women, it would have undercut his entire ministry of forgiveness, but if he had not condemned her, the Pharisees would have attacked him for abandoning the law and the ten commandments. His "He who is without sin, cast the first stone." essentially threw the decision back in their faces. What the liberals miss, is that Jesus DID condemn the sin, he just offered forgiveness from the death penalty which would have been required under the law." The point of the incident is not that Christians can never identify or take a stand against sin, but when they do, they also have a responsibility to tell the sinner that Jesus can and will forgive, if you just ask.
Translation: If Christians were calling for Gays to be put to death under old testament mosaic law, that would be wrong and not in the spirit of "Jesus and the adulteress women". However just to say publicly that Homosexuality is a sin or to shun those that practice the sin, is perfectly acceptable for Christians (in fact some might argue a duty).
Yes, but often it is not. That's why we have laws.
There is a tradition that even in times of war, conscientious objectors to war are not forced to participate.
It is a grave decision to force someone to act in violation of his conscience, and we must not forget that, at the time of its founding, the United States was populated with many people who fled Europe because they had been subjected to exactly this.
I do not approve of homosexual marriage, but I would serve homosexual couples precisely for the reasons mentioned in this article.
However those whose conscience is violated by this should not be forced to do so.
Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, Lord,” she replied.
“Neither do I condemn you,” he declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
the missing verse
“but here is the cake you ordered, celebrating your life of sin...mazel tov “
His "He who is without sin, cast the first stone." essentially threw the decision back in their faces.
What the liberals miss, is that Jesus DID condemn the sin, he just offered forgiveness from the death penalty which would have been required under the law." The point of the incident is not that Christians can never identify or take a stand against sin, but when they do, they also have a responsibility to tell the sinner that Jesus can and will forgive, if you just ask.
You're right - the left has turned this one story into a false mantra - that 'nothing can be judged'... Which of course they only use against us. (Which IS a judgement by the way...) Elite liberals are the most thoughtless judgementalists on the planet.
“Religious liberty is a core American and Arizona value — so is nondiscrimination.”
She’s being loony.
Most definitely. In Hawaii, where I live, there was a battle in the legislature regarding just that, whether churches will be exempt from having to marry gays. We lost.
Cal Thomas: “The Christian bakers who refused to bake the cake might have used their opportunity to tell the gay couple about the God who loves them more then they could ever love each other.”
True. The bakers may have told the homosexuals God loves them. What that has to do with sin, repentance, and redemption, I don’t know. It’s hardly a challenge—more of a feel good statement of God’s universal love and one that the homosexuals might have even agreed with!
Cal Thomas: “The biblical thing to do for the Oregon cake business was to bake the cake for the gay couple.”
That’s your opinion, Cal, and that’s why any business should be able to refuse business for any reason whatsoever. It’s not about what you or I think is right, it’s about what the owners think is right. It’s their property.
That’s also the answer to your statement about employee religious freedoms, like the right to wear a beard or hijab at work. Freedom of religion does not mean you can force people—on their private property—to comply with your religious views. A privately owned business should also be able to hire or fire anyone and set its standards of dress and behavior, for any reason whatsoever or no reason (from the employee’s perspective), at any time.
It’s only when we ignore supreme rights like freedom of association, freedom of religion, and private property that we create this muddy grey area of competing rights and give government the power to act as a fairness arbitrator. The benefit, i.e. less discrimination, is not worth the price of getting government involved!
I disagree. The bible says we're to have no part in evil deeds.
Ephesians 5: …10trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. 11Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; 12for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.…
Bad day at Black Rock.
No, she's using Leftspeak to cover her breaking a conservative scruple.
Lots of pressure, and in this case, capitulation to pressure. Some homosexual political spy pointed something out to her about money and power, and she melted down like a chocolate chip on a hot cookie sheet.
So for this crap to pass the equal protection clause the queers can also compel the muzzie halal catering businesses in Phoenix to serve at fag weddings too, then? And if they cannot, then why not?
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