Posted on 06/30/2013 7:32:06 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Today's talk of tolerance and acceptance of gay marriage will soon give way to intolerance and rejection of those who hold a traditional view of marriage.
The next offensive in this culture war will involve wielding government to force individuals to accept the new definition of marriage, falsely invoking analogies to civil rights.
As a prototype, consider the assault on the liberty of Elaine Huguenin, the wedding photographer in New Mexico. In 2006, a couple asked her to photograph their wedding. When she learned the couple were lesbians, she declined, explaining that pursuant to her faith, she only photographed man-woman weddings.
The couple got a different photographer, but they sued Huguenin. In New Mexico, there is no gay marriage. In a recent poll, most New Mexicans said they oppose gay marriage. But the state outlaws discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The New Mexico Human Rights Commission found Huguenin had broken the law, and ordered her to pay $7,000. Huguenin, with the aide of the pro-bono civil liberties law firm Alliance Defense Fund, has sued and the case is now before state Supreme Court.
Try to live your own life according to traditional values, and the state will come after you, and compel you live according to its values.
Florist Barronelle Stutzman owns Arlene's Flowers in Richland, Wash. A gay man, who was a long-time customer of Arlene's, asked Stutzman to arrange flowers for his wedding. She declined, citing her belief that marriage is a union between a man and woman. Now Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is coming after Stutzman, saying, in effect, she must participate in this gay wedding.
How does Ferguson justify using the power of the state to impose his morality? "If Ms. Stutzman sells flowers to heterosexual couples," the Seattle Post-Intelligencer quotes Ferguson saying, "she must sell them to same-sex couples."
But obviously Stutzman did sell flowers to same-sex couples, happily - that's why this particular client was a long-time customer. What she refuses to do is participate in a ceremony that the state calls marriage, but which she doesn't consider to be marriage.
This is why the civil rights analogy doesn't work. Hugeinin's case and the Stutzman's case aren't about small businesswomen refusing to serve gay people. They are about businesswomen refusing to endorse the novel definition of marriage.
Now a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has asserted that the only reason to object to gay marriage is to "demean" gay people, expect this offensive in the culture war to escalate.
President Obama promised that he won't try to force churches to administer gay weddings. That's very kind of him. But Obama's contraception mandate has shown us how narrowly he views religious liberty.
Maybe Obama or his successor won't use an executive order to rewrite the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, but government will go after churches all the same. The Cardinal O'Boyle Hall that your parish occasionally rents to outside groups? Better allow gay wedding receptions there or face the wrath of the state.
You're allowed to be religious, of course, but only on the Sabbath. If you dare step into the world of commerce or public service, the government will impose its morality on you.
You see it in Obama's rhetoric: he talks of "freedom of worship" rather than freedom of religion. It's a push to bring to heel all rivals of government. Liberal writer Kevin Drum made it pretty explicit during the contraception mandate debate:
"I'm tired of religious groups operating secular enterprises (hospitals, schools)," he wrote, "hiring people of multiple faiths, serving the general public, taking taxpayer dollars -- and then claiming that deeply held religious beliefs should exempt them from public policy."
The thrust: religious groups should only do religion--they shouldn't feed the poor, clothe the naked, educate the young.
And individuals who adhere to religions? Leave your faith at the church door. The Obama administration has argued in the contraception mandate cases that we lose our freedom of conscience the second we enter into commerce with other people.
The Left has long been the aggressor in the culture war. The crushing power of government has long been their weapon.
Many politically involved writers and advocates concerned with liberty and equality fought to open marriage to gay couples. Now that they've won, here's hoping that those who care about liberty will defend the liberty of cultural conservatives to live their lives according to their faith.
-- Timothy P. Carney is The Washington Examiner's senior political columnist
God invented marriage, not man. God designated marriage, not as a contractual agreement, but as a covenant. Governments may be able to regulate contracts, but a covenant is based on the laws of God and not man. Thus marriage is an institution outside of the bounds of government.
Government was happy to intrude into the marriage because when we gave tax exemptions based on marital status, or when we taxed a person’s estate upon their death, or when the State stepped in to direct the disposition of an estate, or when we used the State to enforce marital fidelity or grant divorces, we had to allow the State to define who was “married” and who was not.
As with all things Statist, the secular State’s definition of marriage and divorce has come to have more weight in society than God’s definition.
God defines marriage as being between men and women. While many men whom God called righteous in the Bible practiced polygamy, Jesus is quoted in Matthew chapter 19 that from the beginning of humanity, it was God’s intent that marriage would only be one man and one woman. In Mark chapter 10, Jesus stated that God, not man, joins the husband and wife and the two are “one flesh”, an act that by its very nature is only heterosexual.
God defines sexual relations between people of the same sex as against His law, that is immoral. In Revelation 22:15, a book dictated to John by Jesus, God tells us that anyone who practices sexual immorality will not be granted eternal life.
These are ecclesiastical considerations that are outside of secular government, that is unless we want government to police sexual behavior between consenting adults based on the standards of the Bible, assuming we can agree what those are. Do we want Congress to have that debate?
Maybe it is time to get government out of the marriage business and to return it to the private sphere. The problem for me today is that people who want to call themselves “married” against God’s law (as I read it) are willing to use the State to force me to recognize that marriage, which I cannot do. The want to have the State’s public education system indoctrinate my children that homosexual marriage is “normal”. They want to force me to subsidize the homosexual marriage in the tax code just like the godly marriage is subsidized, and they will use state agencies to punish me for “discrimination” if I decline to accept their status in any way.
If the State must force me to acknowledge its power to declare two men to be “married”, then I must support efforts to remove that power from the State. If people who don’t want God defining their personal morality demand a separation of church and State then let us also have separation of marriage and State as well. If those people don’t want any displays of the Ten Commandments in government buildings, they cannot hide behind the Commandments that protect marriage when it comes marriage that God cannot sanction.
“You’re allowed to be religious, of course, but only on the Sabbath. If you dare step into the world of commerce or public service, the government will impose its morality on you.”
In Missouri, until the 1970’s, the State restricted what retail shops could be open and what they could sell on Sunday. These laws came to be called “Blue Laws”. The State still has a single Blew Law left: auto dealers must be closed on Sunday.
So even on the “Sabbath”, government imposes its morality on you, especially if you keep the same Sabbath that Jesus kept and would close your business on Saturday. The State would still insist that you need to keep the day it insists you must rest on.
The Reverend should tell any that request it that he does not perform civil marriage. Only Holy Matrimony, and that requires all the prerequisite counciling sessions and and church doctrine requirements. Much like Catholics require that a would be bride or groom must convert if they are not Catholic.
Unfortunately, all churches will have to start doing that. They may even have to separate from the state civil marriage all together, it might even come to not getting licenses . And people who want to make it legal would then have too have a civil marriage too, at a courthouse or JP. But the issue is staying with God and the Bible, and being married in the eyes of God, NOT the state. We can pray it doesn’t come to that, but it very well may.
Revolt is coming.
will NOT back down. They’ll have to jail or kill me.
The aggressor sets the rules.
So you have two choices: either get nasty back or sit on your ass and watch them take over.
You choose.
There’s an old saying: all evil needs to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
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Today's talk of tolerance and acceptance of gay marriage will soon give way to intolerance and rejection of those who hold a traditional view of marriage.
"Will soon give way"?? Where this writer been? Homo activists have been attacking those who hold a traditional aka "real" view of marriage for a long, long time. It's just going to get much worse now.
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Non-Catholics are no longer required to convert to Catholicism if they marry in the Church.
Sexual orientation?
Bullsheit. Same Sex Attraction Disorder is a symptom of sexual DISorientation.
I am sorry you are wrong. within 5-10 years it will be legal to marry animals, minors, tractors, bacon, and Polygamy will be the norm.
We are not sloughing to Gomorrah, we are running at full tilt.
Clergy really ought not worry, at least not for the time being (except perhaps military chaplains.)
The law sees a significant difference between a clergyman performing a religious function and a florist arranging flowers or a photographer taking pictures. The former are protected by the Free Exercise Clause. The latter are not.
I can't find the Freeper link, butt here was a story last year about a woman that was suing her Baptist church of the pastor performing a gay wedding.
The Church will leave the marriage business very soon.
To much money at risk to do much else.
Some will make a stand.
In California there is, and has been for a long time, a law that schools must promote marriage.
Now, therefore, schools must promote gay “marriage”.
What liberty?
anyone opposes you for wanting normal marriage and saying homosexuality is disgusting should be met as the left does ti us and that is stop being a bigot, stop being a hater, stop being anti Christian , stop being anti religion zealot, stop being an hater or what founded this country.
Religious freedom is not a hateful thing , but opposing the law, the constitution, and the founding of the country is a hater
they like to throw names about then do it back to them and use their Alinsky tactics right back at the bigots
they can pretend as much as they want to have their sham or to be a family but the fact is that it is a sham and because they have fecal sex does not make them a normal couple or married.
If I ever hear anyone saying they are a family or married then they will hear off me and if they start their crap then they are nothing but anti freedom of religion bigots and haters etc .
there is no way he can be forced to marry them and to worry about it instead of just preaching and telling folks marriage is between one man and one woman is silly
then we don;t play by the rules, we speak up and tell everyone what is what instead most on the right have bene cowering like little chickens , hell ever on this htread I;ve read how a friend is a pstor and is scared he might be forced to marry them
Tell them to piss off, we get groups to defend us like them and we go after them, we call them haters and bigots, label them like they have been doing to us, fight them like they have been fighting us, .
Course most on our side and some on here sit in their house, get on their computer and them on on here but never make a damn call, never get involved, and even at times like thanksgiving they say they have liberal family members and so they never talk about politics and shut up when it is risen.
Yea way to go cowards, and all they do is moan on here and never do a damn thing
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