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There is an increasingly potent ‘attack’ on freedom of religion that is coming to the fore, and its coming from an unlikely source, sexual desire.
Everyone has a right to determine their sexual orientation, and nobody deserves to be vilified for it, however it seems freedom of association, subsequently religious freedom, has limitations whereas freedom of sexual desire doesn’t.
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Matthew 24 vs 12
*iniquity means sin
According to Crisis Magazine, in January, co-owner Aaron Klein denied a request to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding. “The Bible tells us to flee from sin,” his wife and business namesake, Melissa Klein told a Fox News columnist recently. “I don’t think making a cake for it helps.
Protests, boycotts, and a storm of media attention—much of it negative—ensued. The couple received death threats. Then, activists broadened the boycott: any wedding vendor that did business with Sweet Cakes would be targeted. The final nail in the coffin came in August when the slighted lesbian couple filed an anti-discrimination suit with the state.
“The LGBT attacks are the reason we are shutting down the shop. They have killed our business through mob tactics,” Klein said. His wife added: “I guess in my mind I thought we lived in a lot nicer of a world where everybody tolerated everybody.”
You have to agree, this is a ‘scary’ prospect for anyone mindful of societal activities. This means you can actually be forced to do something that is contrary to your beliefs, and if you refuse you are ostracized from society; whatever happened to “right of admission reserved”
It’s not the only case, it seems there are more, and these are just a few of them;
¦ Fleur Cakes, Oregon: Pam Regentin, the owner of the Mount Hood-area cake shop, refused to make a cake for a lesbian couple earlier this year, sparking another Facebook boycott in May. (Sources: news reports including local television.)
¦ Liberty Ridge Farm, New York: The family-owned farm in mid-state New York is facing a human rights complaint after refusing to host a lesbian wedding in 2012. (Sources: local news sources here and here and the Huffington Post.)
¦ All Occasion Party Place, Texas: In February, the Fort Worth-based wedding venue declined to host a wedding reception for a gay couple. An online boycott has now been launched against the business. (Sources: local news and the Huffington Post.)
Someone will say it’s just cake, but the legalization of same-sex marriage has created new opportunities for Christian business owners to run afoul of longstanding anti-discrimination laws. But same-sex marriage is not only creating the opportunity—it’s also affecting how those laws are interpreted.
Such laws ban discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation,” an ambiguous term that could refer either to the sexual attraction and self-identification of individuals or their behaviour, according to Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council.
Christian conservatives, he says, draw a distinction between an individual and his behavior. “To disapprove of homosexual relationships … is something quite different from discrimination against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation,” he said. We don’t hate the “sinner” but we hate the sin
The line between the dignity of a person and their behaviour, however, is being blurred by the Left, according to Sprigg, enabling it to wield anti-discrimination laws against Christian conservatives who are, in fact, not discriminating against individuals.
It’s not just religious freedom that is threatened; it’s also freedom of speech.
Before a United States of America state Supreme Court, a defense attorneys had argued that “photography is an expressive art form and that photography can fall within the constitutional protections of free speech,” according to the court’s summary.
“Elane Photography also states that in the course of its business, it creates and edits photographs for its clients so as to tell a positive story about each wedding it photographs, and the company and its owners would prefer not to send a positive message about same-sex weddings or same-sex marriage.”
Requiring them to photograph such weddings is “forced speech”. That should concern everyone. Today, it might be a photographer asked to document a gay or lesbian wedding. Tomorrow, it could be a lesbian or gay photographer asked to shoot a traditional marriage rally against their convictions.
“Tolerance is permitting opinions and practices that differ from one’s own. It is an act of intolerance to force individuals to do something against their deeply and sincerely held religious beliefs. It is no more or less complicated than this,”
If other Christians are wondering what the future holds, they have to look no further than Europe. In Ireland, a Christian printer’s refusal to publish a gay magazine has landed him in court.
In Scotland, a Presbyterian church group was turned away from a hotel because of its views on same-sex marriage. And, in France, a mayor is facing five years in prison because he wouldn’t perform a gay wedding.
If Europe is to be any guide, religious freedom may not even be safe within the ‘four walls’ of a church: in August, a gay couple announced they were mounting a legal challenge against a state law that allows British churches to opt out of holding gay weddings.
Clearly then, it won’t be long before the situation gets to our “world class African City” and the whole country duly.
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. John 16 vs 33
