There’s a trend taking shape that doesn’t bode well for people who want to live
their lives according to the tenets of their faith. Businesses — like bakers, florists,
and photographers — that provide what a couple needs to put together a wedding,
are being forced to serve same-sex weddings or pay a hefty fine. The idea being
advanced is that not to do so comprises discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation: If a white couple or an interracial couple can marry, why not a gay one?
The Masterpiece Bakeshop in Denver, Colorado is the latest victim. Its owner, Jack
Phillips, who is a Christian, declined to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
The couple wanted it to celebrate their wedding, which had taken place earlier, in
Massachusetts.
Mr. Phillips said creating a cake to celebrate something his faith informs him is
wrong violates his religious beliefs and First Amendment freedom of speech. The
Colorado Civil Rights Commission says baking a cake does not constitute speech and
that Masterpiece Bakery must accommodate future requests for wedding cakes for
same sex couples or face penalties.
Colorado doesn’t even permit same sex marriages, though it does allow civil
unions. The state has an anti-discrimination law. Increasingly, such laws are being
interpreted and enforced in a way that violates religious freedom.
The judge’s order said Jack Phillips “must cease and desist from discriminating”
insisting that his Masterpiece Cakeshop had discriminated against Charlie Craig and
David Mullins due to their “sexual orientation by refusing to sell them a wedding
cake for their same sex marriage.”
The rabid Left in this country wants to keep religion inside people’s heads and
hearts…and churches. This doesn’t work because, a truly religious person, wants to
practice his religion. To live it out in everyday life, not just at church on Sunday.
Where is the tolerance demanded by the gay community just a decade or so ago?
They are not practicing it. They and their advocates simply will not tolerate non-
celebration or non-affirmation of their lifestyle by people of faith.
The mainstreaming of homosexuality, particularly same-sex marriage is the weapon
of choice for what really amounts to war on religion. The message is: ‘treat same-sex
“marriage’ the same as opposite sex marriage, or natural marriage. If you don’t we’ll
take you before the authorities and shut you down.
This is part of a concerted effort to secularize America, to forbid people from
practicing their religion even in the way they conduct themselves, in the way they go
about operating their businesses. The Left insists it is all for freedom of worship.
National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote: “Secularism would have you
surrender your conscience as soon as you leave a house of worship.”
But the Left will take a man’s livelihood if he doesn’t affirm same-sex marriage.
Oh yes, they’ll leave Christians alone if their Christianity is something they just do on
Sunday.