Indiana Gov. signs "religious freedom" bill into law

Guy walks into a gun store.

You are the gun salesman.

"I'd like to buy a guy. I'm going to kill my wife with it."

Do you sell it to him?

 

The difference is marriage is legal, and a fundamental human right. The ability to kill your spouse is neither of those things.

A core aspect of this controversy is the group of people who believe the Bible's objections to Homoweddings should be enshrined in secular law, much the way murder is.

 

Do you disagree with attempts to convince Muslims to "abandon" the portions of the Koran that they believe support the act of jihad?

 

No. Those differences don't matter here. We're not talking about the law. I don't think they should lawfully be able to decline to cater the wedding. I think that sexual orientation should be a protected class.

But I am addressing something very narrow here, which is Amy's argument that catering the wedding does not implicate the caterer's objection to same sex marriage. It does, same as the gun sale would implicate the gun salesman's objection to murder.

 

That's completely beside the point. (If it's out of bounds for me to say that, can someone let me know, and I'll clean it up?)

Amy argued that catering a gay wedding does not implicate the caterer's belief that gay marriage is a sin.

It does. No different than the gun salesman.

 

So catering a gay wedding is the same as being the guy who sold the guns to the Columbine shooters?

 

No.

Amy argued that catering the gay wedding does not cause the person to violate their belief in opposing gay marriage. It does, just like the gun salesman violates his belief in not murdering by selling the gun to someone he knows is going to use it to commit a sin.

Until progressives understand this and respect it, they might win a few battles, but they won't win the war.

These people are not "bigots." They believe they are aiding and abetting a sin.

 

As a Christian, I'm not particularly worried about Christians in this whole mess. We gotta worry about us, and if one of us is so easily wooed into supporting the rhetoric around this bill -- I've already written the law was essentially a series of hoops that, at best, had a chilling effect -- than we open ourselves up to criticism.

Fact is: I don't think the Bible is wrong, but to suggest its view on sex is is narrowed solely to LGBT matters is pure conservative politics. It's an easy target. Jesus had little interest in easy targets because he knew that focusing on them had no transformative effect; if all he did was condemn what the OT "law" had already condemned, the point of his life -- which in tiny, tiny part was to clarify and fulfill the law -- would have been dimmed. So he wasted very little time on it. And many of those easy targets -- the widely condemned and despised -- latched onto it right away and followed him. That's why a career thief gets saved with about 4 seconds left on the game clock. And why Jesus chastises his own Apostles for believing the prostitute wasted her money rubbing Jesus feet with perfume. And why, when Jesus goes on the attack, he does so with the most powerful in that religious society. Not in the political society -- the religious society. Jesus was long concerned with the internal integrity of the organization, not how it related to the political entity.

Many Christians today - if indeed they are Christians - are much too concerned with the latter. Maybe it is because of the Constitution; I'd suppose it is. The most bizarre of these - the all-time bizarre one - is "prayer in school," because heaven forbid we pray everywhere but schools. That one's completely meaningless. The LGBT stuff isn't, per se, but it's narrow and rather beyond the point.

If you want to challenge a Christian, you'd ask them why a business would single out LGBT customers but not divorced ones. Or ones in what clearly seems to dysfunctional relationships. You'd examine their fidelity to a faith that, in theology, combines both liberal and conservative ideas.

 

The gun salesman is enabling the murder.

The caterer is not enabling the Homowedding. The officiant is, and would be perfectly within his or her rights to refuse to officiate.

 

What's "wrong" and what should be illegal can be two different things.

As Dick has pointed out, except in communities where they are specifically a protected class, it basically is legal to discriminate against homosexuals, right?

And, while I think we can all agree that homosexuality isn't immoral, and a gay wedding isn't a satanic ritual, if we give people the right to object to something do to their personal religious believes/conscience/morality, then we either need to let the individual make that decision, or we need to define what events/groups/actions are legally objectionable.

Is that really what we want?

I don't think there's anything wrong with nudity or nudists, but I can certainly understand why a photographer or caterer wouldn't want to participate in a nudist wedding.

And, if you agree with that, then you're saying it's ok to discriminate against nudists. And, you might also say that it's different than refusing to photograph of cater a gay wedding. And, to you it might be. But, why should you be in charge of drawing the boundaries for someone else. Certainly there are people who would photograph and/or cater a nudist wedding. If their views were law, would you be obligated to do so too?

 

Yeah, I'm respectfully with Amy on this one. Sometimes a job is just a job and the person could be completely against gay marriage, but that might not trump his desire to get paid.

Hell, I've been to a gay wedding where a decent portion of the people there were not in favor of gay marriage.