Posted on 04/04/2015 6:16:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
A black man shouldn't be forced to bake a cake for a KKK party. A Jew shouldn’t be forced to bake a cake for a Nazi shindig. A Muslim shouldn't be forced to bake a cake with pork. A gay man shouldn't be forced to bake a cake for a Westboro Baptist Church’s "God hates F@gs" party and a Christian business should not be forced to participate in a gay marriage. For that matter, a Christian shouldn't be forced to bake a cake for an orgy, a Satanist mass or an atheist meeting either.
When you say that a Christian shouldn’t become a baker, florist or wedding photographer unless he’s willing to violate his religious beliefs, you’re directly contradicting the First Amendment which “prohibits the making of any law…impeding the free exercise of religion.” When you make it impossible for a Christian to enter a profession without violating his faith, then you are violating the First Amendment. That should make Freedom of Religion laws completely unnecessary and if that doesn’t do the trick, then common sense should do the job because businesses already refuse to serve customers for every reason under the sun.
Here at the beach, many businesses have a “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service” sign. In certain areas, bars and restaurants will ask you to leave if you’re wearing gang colors. If you make too much noise in a movie theater or even try to take in your own food, you will be told to leave. If a liberal atheist gives speeches for pay, you can’t legally force him to give a conservative speech to a group of Christians. For that matter, even Apple, which attacked Christians in Indiana and Arkansas who don’t want to violate their religious beliefs, can and does reject applications it finds offensive. Apple also does business with nations like Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Iran and Qatar that despicably murder their own citizens for being gay -- but that’s a different column.
Moreover, the people being discriminated against here are Christians, not gays. If you’re gay and a cake shop, florist, photographer or even a pizza place doesn’t want to participate in your wedding, you should go to the next one down the street. If you suffer any damage at all, it’s only to your fragile self-esteem that apparently can’t deal with the fact that someone exists who doesn’t approve of everything you do. On the other hand, a Christian company that lives up to its principles may be fined into oblivion or lose its business entirely because it refuses to abandon its beliefs. This isn’t a theoretical argument; it has happened multiple times already. Who’s actually the victim? The Christian who politely declines to cater an event because it conflicts with his values or the gay grifter who deliberately picks a principled small business to try to ruin, feigns shock when it won’t cater his wedding and then tries to turn destroying a decent person’s livelihood into a way to gain money and attention?
Of course, non-Christians might ask what the difference is between baking a cake for say, an adulterer, or creating one for a gay marriage. The answer is that we’re ALL sinners, but there’s a big difference between serving a sinner and actively participating in his sins. No Christian business should participate in a gay wedding and that’s not a controversial point among Christians. Gay marriage is incompatible with Christianity and if you are unfortunate enough to be at one of the relatively small number of churches that tells you otherwise, it has put pleasing the world ahead of being faithful to God and you should move elsewhere as soon as possible.
Even if that’s so, didn’t Jesus sit down with sinners? So, shouldn’t Christians cater to gay weddings? Jesus certainly did sit down with sinners, but He didn’t do it on their terms. Jesus was there to help people who had gotten off track, not to get down in the mud and sin with them. If Jesus was forced to lend His carpentry services to a gay wedding, chances are He’d tell the guests that they shouldn’t engage in sodomy and would suggest that they call off the wedding. Then, MSNBC would be railing against Him, Dan Savage would be calling Him a bigot and Jesus would end up making tens of millions in contributions to a GoFundMe Account set up in His name that He’d end up giving to the poor, because He’s just that kind of guy.
If people can lose their jobs for opposing gay marriage (and they have) and small businesses can be fined and harassed until they’re closed for opposing gay marriage (and they have), what’s next? Will we be jailing people for refusing to go to gay weddings? Will Christian churches that oppose gay weddings (which is all of them except for a few slowly dying, corrupted liberal denominations) be run out of business? Christianity has been around since before America was a country and assuming the planet lasts that long, it will be around long after this nation is gone. So, the question isn’t whether Christianity is going anywhere: it’s whether Christianity in America will continue going strong. The answer to that question depends on the courage of America’s Christians and their willingness to stand up for their faith.
Whatever happened to the ole saying...
WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYONE
that gave me an idea
an organization that would find families in need and set up a 5-day GoFundMe page named for Jesus. Once completed, if Jesus isn't available to receive the money, it would be donated to the designated person/family.
i'm sure there are millions of people that would give $1 to help a family in need, especially if they knew the cause was righteous.
this would drive the left nutz
Excellent article.
Faggies rule! What more proof do we “breeders” need!!?
):^(
Excellent point
We, as Christians, are called to NOT SUE but LOVE. Even though here in America, Land of the Suing Lottery, life might look good after a big new bank account won from the courts, the poor who sue only make a lawyer rich, not them.
What needs to happen in my opinion is for groups of Christians to hold prayer vigils of love and healing and show what real love and real peace look like and from where it comes. When The Holy Spirit is shown in these gatherings (like He did on the set of Killing Jesus) we can hope to see many turn back to Christ and then live their lives closer to His teachings.
You. Nailed. It.
Sadly, that boat sailed back in the 60s, when we used the power of the state to force racists to change their ways of doing business.
If a motel owner with sincere religious beliefs against “race-mixing” can be forced to rent a room to an interacial couple, and he has been for 50 years, then the state can compel businessmen to provide services to same-sex weddings.
There are only three real rationales for opposing the extension of this principle, assuming you accept the original law.
1. You disapprove of racism but approve of opposition to homosexuality and/or SSM.
2. Race should be a category protected against discrimination, but sexual orientation should not.
3. Personally participating in an event is different from making accomodations available to all. It implies approval.
#1 won’t logically work.
I agree with #2, but I suspect that boat has sailed, and it isn’t coming back.
Any future resistance I believe will need to be based on #3. Not on 1A’s religious freedom clause, but on its freedom speech clause. Artistic expression such as photography or cake decorating is speech. Freedom of speech requires the right to not speak if you choose not to.
“You are off the topic”
I disagree. The poster is on topic. The topic is that we may be forced to do something we think today is impossible, yet, we also thought being taxed for not buying something was impossible just a few years ago. Now, we are taxed if we do not buy something. Soon, we will be taxed, or punished, for not attending homosexual affairs.
“Whatever happened to the ole saying...
WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYONE”
It died with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent court rulings.
You are off the topic
Okay, its “your” topic but I was responding to your specific question. Obama Care was not the best example. A better example would have been “gay marriage” itself.
Also, from the article and i ask you by whose authority are they able to do this?
“If people can lose their jobs for opposing gay marriage (and they have) and small businesses can be fined and harassed until they’re closed for opposing gay marriage (and they have)
Than the article ask the question “what’s next?”
I take from this they mean what else can the federal government force us to do against our consciences..(?)
“Whatever happened to the ole saying...
WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYONE”
It died with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent court rulings.
I think you’re correct.
That’s why Obama Inc is making the gay issue a ‘Civil Rights’ issue, so it will be protected.
Go for it!
I see an opportunity for someone to open a Gay-R-Us stores. They would be a one stop places for weddings, cakes, pizzas and catering.
Yet, governments discriminate all the time:
Hobos evicted from public libraries.
Tent cities broken up and dispersed.
I suggest hobos and the homeless proclaim and immunize themselves as homosexual.
Has anyone gone to a gay wedding, or declined an invitation to one?
I can’t see myself attending one. Celebrating the union of two men that have anal sex seems revolting to me. I don’t think I could attend one. I would find a way out.
Bump it to the top
“Sadly, that boat sailed back in the 60s, when we used the power of the state to force racists to change their ways of doing business.”
Actually state power well preceded this. Businesses were forced to conform to racist views and were limited in how they could do business by the Democrat racists.
“If a motel owner with sincere religious beliefs against “race-mixing” can be forced to rent a room to an interacial couple”
The state forced people to not “race mix”. This was not an option. It was illegal.
The Democrats did all of this and continue to do it.
“Here at the beach, many businesses have a “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service” sign”
He should have left this out of the argument because it’s not based on the 1st Amendment.
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