If there was one person, Bryan, whom I could count on to approach the issue of religious liberty in a diverse society in a calm, insightful, and level-headed fashion, I knew it … well, it probably wouldn’t be you. Your screed at OneNewsNow exemplifies the best of compassionate, contemplative, and Christ-like attitude that has prevailed in this debate thus far.
Christians are the new Dred Scott
Or not.
So, tell us, Bryan, how are Christians — a majority population in this country, mind you — suddenly in the position of Dred Scott, victim of a pernicious Supreme Court ruling leading up to the Civil War, which stripped him and his family and, in fact, all African-Americans, from a claim to citizenship in the US, and declaring slavery as a constitutional right that could not be regulated by the federal government? Do tell!
Religious liberty is being squashed in America at a frightening pace. The Supreme Court decision tyrannically and unconstitutionally imposing sodomy-based marriage on the entire country against the will of its citizens has only accelerated the trend to warp speed.
Whoa, a lot to unpack there, Bryan. Let’s see …
Well, we’ll assume the “squashing” of religious liberty will be spelled out further on.
Whence the Supreme Court’s tyranny, though, or its unconstitutional actions? It found that, under the clear language of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (established, ironically, to protect former slaves like Dred Scott and his family), that all Americans are entitled to equal protection under the law: that neither the federal nor the state governments can treat people differently without a compelling reason for doing so.
Both the argument and the power of the SCOTUS to make such a ruling is Constitutional Law 101, Bryan. Railing against it as “tyrannical” or “unconstitutional” is about as coherent as, say, threatening to hold your breath until you turn blue.
Your labeling of same-sex marriage as “sodomy-based marriage” is a charming nuance, but a bit goofy. It’s like calling traditional heterosexual marriage “vaginal intercourse-based marriage”. If that’s the primary foundation of your particular marriage, Bryan, my condolences to Mrs. Fischer.
Your analysis of “imposing … on the entire country against the will of its citizens” is also interesting, Bryan, from both truthiness and a propriety perspectives. First, it’s clearly not an imposition on the entire country; there were already states that had chosen to support marriage equality, and others that accepted the rulings of federal and state courts in the matters without pitching a hissy-fit. There’s also been plenty of indication, from public opinion polls that, despite the rush of anti-gay marriage laws several years back, a majority of the nation (slim, but there) actually now favors marriage equality.
Are there particular states and regions that aren’t gung-ho on the prospect? Sure. But that brings up an important consideration, Bryan: the Supreme Court (any court, for that matter) is not out to do what is popular and widely supported. Indeed, when it comes to civil rights, that’s when they are least needed. Instead, they are to rule based on the law. If the courts worked on popularity … well, then we wouldn’t really need them, as we already have legislatures.
The problem of the shrinkage of religious liberty was bad enough before the Supreme Court meddled in it, and now religious liberty is on pace to vanish any place outside the four walls of a church building or a home. And it may not even be safe there.
Yes, clearly you are being oppressed in your ability to speak out and worship as you choose, Bryan. QED.
Liberal pundit Sally Kohn, after attacking me, Todd Starnes, and Rod Dreher by name in a piece in the Daily Beast, expresses her fervent wishes for our complete marginalization: “Will anti-gay Christians be politically and socially ostracized? I sure hope so.”
Social ostracism is one thing. This means not being invited to parties and social clubs and being snubbed by neighbors.
But political ostracism is another thing entirely. Political ostracism means being excluded from the political sphere. It means being excluded from participatory democracy. As I wrote last week, it means in time that Christians will be forbidden to hold public office, or serve in any public capacity, including fire chief (ask Kelvin Cochran of Atlanta all about that) or even school teacher.
Ostracism is generally a social thing. It’s people deciding, “Y’know, Joe-Bob over there is an outspoken racist. I’m not going to invite him to my party. I’m also not going to vote for him for city council.” That’s not a law thing, Bryan, with Joe-Bob being shot by police when he tries to vote. Instead, that’s how democracy works.
Fifty years ago, an openly gay man would have been socially and politically ostracized. Heck, fifty years, an openly Catholic man faced political ostracization because of his religion. You’ve certainly suggested that gays, and Muslims, to name two populations, should be ostracized. Heck, you’ve gone further and suggested that Muslims should be required to renounce their religion or be denied civil rights (including freedom of religion, which you’ve asserted in the past doesn’t apply to Muslims anyway). Before you start accusing others of having motes in their eyes, you might consider that beam in our own.
As for Mr Cochran, when you are a manager over personnel, you are required not to create a hostile environment for your employees. You can’t hang Penthouse centerfolds on the brak room wall. You can’t use racial epithets in the locker room. You can’t make jokes about Jews at the water cooler. And, surprise-surprise, you can’t hand out your self-written book talking about how homosexuals are naughty and evil and abominations before the Lord to your employees, and proclaim the goal of your department to establish God’s Kingdom on Earth.
Subscribing to pro-homosexual orthodoxy will become the new criterion for participating in society at large.
Just like subscribing to pro-Japanese-are-humans-too orthodoxy is (in most civilized places in the America) a criterion for participation in society at large. Egads.
Readers are by now familiar with Aaron and Melissa Klein, who were fined $135,000 by a bureaucrat (no trial by jury, no judge, no right to confront accusers in open court, etc.) for politely declining to violate their own Christian conscience in the conduct of their business.
Ah, the “Sweet Cakes by Melissa” case. I might suggest this as a bit less jaundiced rendition of the case and a discussion of the “politely declining.”
No, the fines were not in a court of law. They were, like quite a bit of law, based on administrative law and regulations. A company that get fined for refusing to hire women? Yeah, that’s administrative. A company that gets fined for dumping toxic liquids down the drain? That’s administrative, too.
As to the size of the fine — well, that same agency recently gave an even larger award to a Christian woman whose boss was harassing her into going to a Scientology conference. I didn’t hear you criticizing that “bureaucrat” for not holding a trial by jury, judge, or open court, Bryan.
To add constitutional insult to constitutional injury, this bureaucrat slapped a gag order on the Kleins so they are not allowed even to talk to anybody about this travesty. Their right to the free exercise of religion, gone. Their right to free speech, gone. Their right to free association, gone.
In other words, this bureaucrat just issued a binding decree that the First Amendment applies to everybody in America except Christians. Christians, according to this man, have no First Amendment rights of any kind.
Yes, that would indeed be an outrage, Bryan — if true. In fact, the judge ordered “Sweet Cakes” to not advertise that they would not serve gays; that’s part of Oregon law, and it’s the same thing that keeps a racist from putting a “Whites Only” sign on the restaurant window. There is nothing stopping the Kleins from talking to whomever they want about the legal case, their Christian beliefs, etc.
A baker in Colorado, Jack Phillips, is going to court today for similarly declining to use his expressive gifts to bake a cake which included a message of support for same-sex marriage. For his effrontery, having the nerve to actually believe the First Amendment applied to him, he too has been fined, ordered to bake cakes that violate his conscience, sent to re-education camp, and ordered to provide quarterly “compliance reports” to show that he is sufficiently servile to the lords of political correctness.
Yes. He violated the law, the same as if he decided God told him not to bake cakes for Women, or Baptists, or the elderly, or Chinese. Claiming it’s a religious belief doesn’t trump every other consideration, any more than if he decided that Jesus wanted him to kill all the Muslims.
So, yes, he’s been told if he’s baking cakes for straight couples, he has to bake cakes for gay couples. He needs to train his employees about public accommodation law. And he has to demonstrate that he’s complying with the law he has to provide reports on the people he turned away and on what basis.
I have said from the very beginning of the debate about special rights based on sexual deviancy that it is a zero sum game. Every advance of the homosexual agenda has to come at the expense of religious liberty. Every time the homosexual cause advances, religious liberty is forced into retreat.
Y’know, Bryan, there is, remarkably enough, a nugget of truth there. To the extent that someone has religious beliefs in opposition to gays, rights and protections recognized for gays restricts how those religious beliefs can be expressed.
But that’s true for anyone. The First Amendment pushed forward the “Baptist agenda,” meaning you couldn’t run Baptists out of town on a rail or throw them in jail for not paying a preaching fee. It infringed on the “religious liberty” of the previously established churches and their members. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 imposed on the religious liberties of people opposed to the “black agenda” and the “Jew agenda” by preventing discrimination in employment and public accommodation.
The more we see ourselves as a society, the more we value freedom and liberty for all, the “liberty” of the majority to keep people out of society is diminished. That seems to me, by and large, to be a good thing. In the end, it’s not a zero sum game because we all, win, both from the benefits of diversity and because, in one way or another, we are all minorities.
Religious liberty will only at last find refuge inside the four walls of church buildings, if it is even allowed there. Tax-exempt status may soon be stripped from every church that will not toe the line, churches may be forced to host gay weddings, and pastors may be forced to conduct them.
Pastors that teach a biblical view of homosexuality from the pulpit may soon be brought up on hate speech and hate crimes charges. While you may think this is an exaggerated fear, it most certainly is not. It’s already happened in Sweden and has happened to street preachers in the UK. It’s only a matter of time before it happens here.
Yes, Bryan, we know, and next come the re-education camps and the mandatory gay marriages. Let me know when it does happen here (as opposed to, say, after the Loving decision, which similarly and controversially said that states could not prevent interracial marriage, even though many citizens opposed such a decision, and many people spoke out about how it violated their religious beliefs to mix the races). Pastors have never been forced to perform a sanctified wedding (or any other sacrament) by law. Nor have they been silenced for refusal to do so. (Yes, yes, I read the Sweden case above, and disagree with it — but until Sweden takes us over, I’m not worried.)
Jazz Shaw, a sodomy-based marriage supporter who writes for the supposedly conservative website Hot Air, is stunned at the rapidity with which religious liberty is vanishing in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. He did not see it coming, and now it’s too late.
“I don’t regret my long held position that the government shouldn’t be involved in marriage, but I admit yet again that I didn’t foresee how wide the litigants would push the door in the other direction if they prevailed in proving that it was…
“When two ‘rights’ conflict in the eyes of the court, one of those sets of rights will have to give way. And the courts have shown repeatedly that they are generally willing to be a reflection of political winds of change rather than adherence to founding principles. The way the breeze is blowing today, if it comes down to a choice between that crusty old freedom of religion and the newly discovered right to marriage, the new broom sweeps clean. It’s a very ugly thing to watch unfolding before our eyes.”
Well, Mr. Shaw, we did see it coming. This is what we warned you about from the beginning of this controversy.
If by this you mean that the freedom to be a bigot in employment, service, or any other endeavor, whether regarding gays or women or other faiths or races, using religion as the excuse, is likely to give way, then, yeah, I think that’s probably accurate. And the only ugliness I see, Bryan, is from the folk who think Jesus gives them the authority to snub others.
The abominable new reality is that Christians have been stripped of every meaningful constitutional right under the First Amendment.
Let me know when you are arrested for your column, Bryan. I’ll pitch in for your defense fund.
Bottom line: the Christian man has no rights which the liberal man is bound to respect. We are the new Dred Scott.
I have to say, Bryan, the “we are Dred Scott” theme is a bit fresher than the “the other side are Nazis” shtick you’ve used for years, but no less offensive.
And, though I know you’d hate to agree to it, “liberal” is not the antonym for “Christian.” You no more speak for every Christian than I do.
Again, be sure and let me know when that knock on the door in the middle of the night comes, Bryan. You’ll be in my prayers.
Bravo!