Posted on 03/03/2014 2:35:18 AM PST by servo1969
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was right to veto SB1062, which would have amended the Arizona Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The bill, per most interpretations I’ve read, would have given broad discretion to business owners, because of their religious convictions, to refuse to do business with anyone associated with homosexual lifestyles.
Religious freedom is about protection of your right to practice your religion and not being forced to violate it.
However, the right to religious freedom does not mean the right to write-off and marginalize into non-existence a whole class of citizens whom you don’t like or agree with.
Under Jim Crow, the problem whites had with blacks was not what blacks thought or did, but that they existed. These laws were designed to relegate one class of citizens to separate and unequal status, simply because of who they were.
Such actions have nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with bigotry and racism.
But, unfortunately, the failure of this poorly conceived Arizona bill will be misinterpreted. Some will incorrectly claim that this means it is not a violation of religious freedom to force a business owner to provide a product or service for activity that is against his or her religious convictions. That is incorrect.
Would anyone question the refusal of a black vendor to sells sheets to the local Ku Klux Klan chapter? Or a Jewish merchant refusing to sell the poster board for a Neo-Nazi rally? Or refusal of a Christian video service to make a pornographic film?
So why is it not perfectly clear that the religious freedom of a Christian merchant is violated if that merchant is forced to bake a cake or prepare a flower arrangement for a same-sex marriage which is not only as personally repugnant to that vendor as any in the cases above, but is also a clear and literal violation of the scripture that defines the faith of these individuals?
And why is it that same-sex couples have such a hard time finding bakers and florists that are not offended by their wedding? Why do they wind up with such regularity trying to buy from Christian vendors?
The reality is that the “gay rights” crusade is not about a struggle for justice but rather it is a cultural war.
Homosexual activists understand the ongoing erosion of traditional values as a pillar of our society and use this opportunity to push Christian reality, once and for all, into the closet and to lock the door.
The cultural script has been re-written such that Christians have been put in a position of either rejecting the precepts and prohibitions of their religion, or being faithful to them and being branded as against “equality.”
The problem, of course, is not what people do in private. The issue is that it all has been dragged into the public square because, again, this is a cultural war.
The battlefront is the core contradiction of legitimization of homosexual behavior that scripture clearly prohibits and then moving on to redefine marriage
Christians have been put in the untenable position that being true to their faith means, by the new standards set in our society, being labeled a bigot and then being exposed to being put out of business.
Let’s keep in mind that the idea of religious freedom only means something as long as religion means something.
It is critical that Christians draw the line and continue the struggle and not allow religion or religious freedom to be compromised. Individuals or businesses forced to supply goods or services for activities against the precepts of their faith must refuse and call forth their protection under the first amendment of the US constitution.
Sez who?
Cultural war yes, but also a war carried out by the IRS, the police, the media, the democrat party and the FCC.
As a way of getting around this problem, someone suggested the formation of providing products and services via “Christian clubs”, that only retail to given denominations.
But this idea has prospects far and away beyond just limited provision of products and services. For example, for some years now there have been “megachurch” communities, where everyone who lives there belongs, all retailers belong, all the schools are parochial, and the communities are gated, keeping out the outsiders and their problems.
But there is no reason in the world why such communities have to be contiguous. And as long as they do not provide products or services “to the general public”, they are legal.
Importantly, businesses could subdivide, offering *some* products and services to the general public, and *some* exclusively for club members, as long as those memberships were not offered to the public.
In many ways, like grocery store cards, who only offer discounts to store members.
Star sometimes gets it well, but she seems to have muffed this one.
If she actually checks facts on the ground there’s virtually nobody who wants to deny something to a homosexual because he’s homosexual, but rather it is because he has made it clear that he wants it in order to further homosexual activities.
She’s running from a boogieman while ignoring a very real moral and spiritual menace.
And that’s just what the devil wants to do. To shove the Light behind dark doors. A megachurch or whatever that is cloistered like this is contrary to God’s desires. It is human weakness, not the word of God, which puts Christians into hiding.
And that’s a strawman argument anyhow.
I’m surprised Star Parker took this line. In addition to being a false comparison I know it infuriates many blacks.
I will make patronizing Chik-fil-A and other decent businesses a priority, and patronizing worldly companies that embrace perversion a decision to be avoided.
Agreed. Let’s meet somewhere other than Disneyworld, with their many homosexual celebration days and new refusal to end funding for the Boy Scouts because of their stance against homosexual leaders.
Disney Decides to Discriminate Against Boy Scouts
Posted 1 hour ago by Paul Breen Filed under 1st Amendment, Business
It seems that only some people can discriminate. The multi-billion-dollar “Walt Disney Company has notified the Boy Scouts of America that it will withdraw all funding from the organization beginning 2015 unless the BSA overturns its policy of not allowing openly gay members to be leaders.”
Some will say that this is different from not providing service to people or groups that promote behaviors and viewpoints that are offensive since Disney’s giving is voluntary. But isn’t purchasing photography, cakes, and printing also voluntary? No one is forcing people to choose one company over others.
If Disney is free to do what it wants with its money based on its beliefs, then why should other business owners be forced to support beliefs they disagree with?
Read: http://godfatherpolitics.com/14587/disney-decides-discriminate-boy-scouts/
She is wrong about the Arizona bill.
You realize I proposed the opposite? That Christians of the “moral” denominations, while geographically spread out, would produce products and services only for those they morally agree with. And if they still wish to sell to the broader market with the general public, for other products, they could still do so.
This solves the wedding cake quandary, since they would only sell wedding cakes to “moral Christian club” members. In fact, it would allow them to not sell wedding cakes the all the other deviationists, no matter if the government supported them or not.
“write off and marginalize”? All these people would have had to do was walk down the street and give their business to a bakery that would make their cake as they wanted. There is no right to make merchants sell products they find offensive. They simply lose the sale.
Well I guess that’s one way to deal with the issue of trade with the world. Don’t do it at all. Most Christians would want to take a middle ground. A normal heterosexual wedding is ok, may God bless it, but faux weddings are not and they would be impossible to bless.
I didn’t say that. The vast majority of things could be sold to the public. The only ones kept in reserve for “moral Christian club” members would be things like wedding cakes, that they did not want to sell to homosexuals, as doing so would be objectionable to their faith.
The one thing the AZ fiasco proved was that Gov. Brewer can be blackmailed by Big Business and the NFL.
...actually, just the NFL...AZ and the Super Bowl are a match made in heaven, and if the NFL yanked it out over this, it would never come back again...to the great joy of Fla and Cali, no doubt...no entity on earth could survive the denial of the Super Bowl over a cultural issue it could very easily make go away,which, of course, the governor did...
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