He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD.
– Proverbs 17:15
Protestors in Indiana march against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
It has been an eventful past week and a half for the Hoosier state and Governor Mike Pence. His signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) on March 25 kicked off a two minutes hate of the sort we have come to expect from the nation’s self-appointed guardians of righteousness. In their eyes, toleration – at least toleration of homosexuality – is the most noble of virtues, and its lack the most heinous of sins. But it’s more than that. The lack of tolerance, in their view, should be a crime punishable by the state. When a business owner refuses his talents in the service of a homosexual wedding, it is the businessman, not the homosexual, who is in the wrong and deserving of punishment.
Those who believe this are increasingly in control of civil government in the US. According to the apostle Paul in Romans 13, the two functions of the civil government are to punish those who practice evil and praise the good. But more and more, this is being stood on its head. Instead of seeing to its God given responsibilities, civil government has increasingly become an instrument for justifying the wicked and condemning the just.
There have been numerous cases in recent years in which Christian business owners have been dragged before courts and civil rights commissions on account of their refusal to take part in homosexual weddings. And not only that, but they have been found guilty of civil rights violations and incurred heavy fines for nothing more than following the teachings of Scripture. Consider the following cases.
New Mexico
Christian wedding photographer Elaine Huguenin found herself on the wrong side of the law after, “she turned down a request from a lesbian couple…to document their commitment ceremony.” According to an article in the New York Times, “There are constitutional values on both sides of the case: the couple’s right to equal treatment and Ms. Huguenin’s right to free speech.”
This view, that there are conflicting rights in this and other cases which somehow must be sorted out by wise men in courts, is a significant barrier to justice in this country. If one’s view of the legal system is such that it leads to situations where rights conflict, the coherence theory of truth – the Biblical view of truth held by Gordon Clark – would posit that there is a serious problem either with the one’s understanding of the law or perhaps with the legal system itself. The problem could even be with both.
In truth, the problem is with the language of rights. One can search the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and not find much, if any, discussion of rights. Scripture does, however, have a great deal to say about the law of God. And it is this law that is the basis for any rights imputed to a person. Since Scripture universally condemns homosexuality in the strongest of terms – in the Old Testament law, homosexuality was both a sin and a crime; one can tell if a sin in the Mosaic law is also a crime by whether civil penalties attach to it; in the case of homosexual acts, the penalty was death, homosexual practice was therefore a crime – there is no such thing as a right to homosexual practice, including homosexual weddings or commitment ceremonies. Further, scripture never requires that a business owner serve anyone against his wishes. This can be seen from the many commandments in the Old Testament to show hospitality to the stranger. It was a commandment of God and a sin to fail follow it. But no civil penalties attached to this command. It was a sin, but not a crime. The notion that there is such a thing as a place of public accommodation over which the proprietor has no control regarding whom he serves is a seriously defective idea, and one that has permitted governmental intrusion into nearly every nook and cranny of what once was an individual’s private life since it was first given the force of law in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The article goes on to cite ACLU lawyer Louise Melling, who to no one’s surprise finds in favor of the lesbian couple.
Ms Melling, said the evaluation [of the case] had required difficult choices. Photography is expression protected by the Constitution, she said, and Ms. Huguenin acted from “heartfelt convictions.”
But the equal treatment of gay couples is more important than the free speech rights of commercial photographers, she said, [how she arrived at this decision, she does not tell us] explaining why the A.C.L.U. filed a brief in the New Mexico Supreme Court supporting the couple.
The New Mexico Supreme court went on to rule against Mrs. Huguenin, saying, “services can be regulated, even though those services include artistic and creative work.”
Colorado
In Colorado, a Christian baker found himself in trouble for refusing service to homosexual couple David Mullins and Charlie Craig. The New York Daily News informs us that,
A Colorado baker has pledged to stop making wedding cakes after his state’s Civil Rights Commission
Jack Phillips. Colorado baker persecuted for refusing to service to homosexual couple.
ordered him to start baking for same-sex couples.
Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, was willing to go to court to defend his decision to refuse service to two grooms who walked into his shop last year looking for a way to celebrate their marriage.
Phillip’s crusade turned out to be a giant failure after the Commission unanimously ruled that he had violated civil rights law by discriminating against the couple.
The devout Christian is retaliating by refusing to make wedding cakes altogether.
“We would close down the bakery before we would complicate [sic] our beliefs,” Phillips told CBS Denver.
This case is ongoing and has recently taken an interesting turn. According to a World Net Daily article,
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s order to a baker to use his artistry to celebrate homosexual unions in violation of his Christian beliefs is under challenge, in part, because a commissioner likened Christians to slavers and Nazis.
Commissioner Diann Rice is quoted in the article as saying in reference to Jack Phillip’s case that,
I would also like to reiterate what we said in the hearing or the last meeting…Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the holocaust, whether it be – I mean, we – we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to – to use their religion to hurt others.
So, a baker who refuses to provide a cake to celebrate the wedding of two newlywed homosexuals is like unto a Nazi and a slaveholder. Apparently the irony of that accusation was lost on the good commissioner. But if she actually had the grasp of history and political philosophy she seems to think she does, she would realize that the Nazis and the slave holders were all about using the power of the state to steal. When a civil rights commissioner uses the power of the state to tell someone how to run his business and whom he must serve, this is nothing if not fascism in living color.
Oregon
Our next horrible headline also comes courtesy of The New York Daily News. It reads, “Oregon bakery will have to pay lesbian couple up to $150,000 for refusing to make wedding cake.” according to the piece,
An Oregon bakery will have to pay a gay couple up to $150,000 for refusing to bake them a wedding cake two years ago, government officials announced Monday.
The Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery in Gresham caught heat in January 2013 when Laurel Bowman said the shop refused to make a cake for her and her fiancée, citing religioius objections. Bowman said the co-owner, Aaron Klein, called the gay marriage “an abomination unto the lord,” KGW reported.
The owners have since closed their bakery and now operate out of their home.
Washington
An article from the Christian Post provides details about the plight of a Christian florist in the state of Washington.
A Christina florist an grandmother who declined to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding because of
Barronell Stutzman
her Christian belief in traditional marriage has been fined $1,001 by a Washington court and will be held liable to pay legal fees incurred by the gay couple, which could “devastate” her financially.
As previously reported by The Christian Post, 70-year-old Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington, was found guilty of violating the state’s nondiscrimination law in February, after referring Rob Ingersoll and Curt Feed to another florist when they asked her to provide the floral arrangements for their wedding.
Although Stutzman sold flowers to Ingersoll for nearly a decade and maintained a positive relationship with him, when he asked her to provide flowers for his same-sex wedding, she felt she could not act against her Christian conviction to serve her friend.
While Benton county Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom’s Friday summary judgment orders Stutzman to pay a fine of $1,001, for now, and forces her to provide services for same-sex weddings, her lawyer, Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Kristen Waggoner said that Stutzman is still at risk of losing her retirement savings and business as she will be responsible for paying the legal fees and damages incurred by Ingersoll and Freed, who were represented by the ACLU.
As with the other cases detailed above, here we have an example of a Christian woman quite literally minding her own business when she is set upon by aggressive homosexuals backed by the money of the ACLU and the power of the state. But instead of vilifying her persecutors of selling out her faith, Stutzman has used this unfortunate situation as an opportunity for testimony. As the Christian Post reports,
Even though Statuzman faces the possibility of personal and professional ruin, she had the “option” to escape from her legal crisis if she had agreed to accept Ferguson’s [Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson] settlement offer, the day after she was found guilty in court, which was to pay a fine of $2,001 and agree to provide her services for gay weddings. Stutzman however, felt she could not turn her back on Jesus in order to save herself or her business.
“Washington’s constitution guarantees us ‘freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment.’ I cannot sell that precious freedom,” Stutzman wrote in a responding letter to the attorney general’s settlement offer. “You are asking me to walk in the way of a well-known betrayer, one who sold something of infinite worth for 30 pieces of silver. That is something I will not do.”
“Your offer reveals that you don’t really understand me or what this conflict is about. It’s about freedom, not money,” Stutzman continued. “I certainly don’t relish the idea of losing my business, my home, and everything else that you lawsuit threatens to take from my family, but my freedom to honor God in doing what I do best is more important.”
That is a powerful testimony indeed.
Indiana
The recent uproar over gay rights in Indiana has claimed its first victim. This time the business did not run afoul of the law, but rather was shut down by the owners as a result of a hate campaign that started with a local television news story.
Writing in The Hill, Mark Hensch reports,
A family-owned pizzeria in Indiana closed on Wednesday following backlash over its support of a controversial religious freedom law.
TMZ reported that Memories Pizza is suspending its business operations amid uproar over the state’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Owner Kevin O’Connor said vitriol toward his restaurant was so intense it was closed until further notice. The eatery began receiving threatening phone calls and social media postings after revealing its support for the law earlier this week.
O’Connor and his family initially inspired public rage by declaring that they would not cater gay weddings on Tuesday. That announcement made Memories Pizza Indiana’s first business to refuse potential customers service for religious reasons under the new law.
It also drew venom from furious critics online. They have since flooded the store’s Yelp page with negative reviews protesting the O’Connor family’s position. Memories had an average rating of 1.5 out of 5 stars based on 1,850 reviews as of Wednesday evening.
It never fails to amaze this author how the so-called purveyors of tolerance are, in fact, the least tolerant people on planet earth. As the National Review’s Ian Tuttle puts it, “Welcome to left-wing “tolerance’ in the Age of the Internet.”
Conclusion
From the cases above, it is strikingly clear that in many cases civil government in the US has ceased to function as a shield to those who do what is right, but instead has become a weapon at the service of an ungodly and increasingly aggressive homosexual rights movement. Predictions are always difficult, but from this author’s perspective there appears to be little hope of this trend reversing any time soon, and a real danger that the legal status of American Christians will continue to deteriorate.
But try as they might, all the ACLU lawyers, big business types, Hollywood celebrities, and high-powered politicians will never make morally right what God in his Word has declared to be an abomination. As Christians, we do not hate those who have chosen to call good evil and evil good. We do not revile them. We do not wish for their destruction. For it is Christ who commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who spitefully use us. In so doing, the Lord is glorified. Perhaps even some of those who persecute Christians for their faith will themselves come to repentance.
But though we do not wish ill on those who practice lawlessness to them, and this includes governors and all those in authority, we offer this solemn warning: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).