When I discussed same-sex marriage with its proponents before last year, I pointed out that this would, inevitably, lead to the squashing of the First Amendment rights of those who don’t believe in it.
“Pshaw”, they said, although not using that exact word. “It’s written into the law; the state can’t come into the church and force people in church to perform a same-sex wedding in a church”.
Which is mighty big of the state, and all, except for people of faith, it’s what happens outside of church that matters.
Of course, the stories of photographers, bakers and florists who’ve been hauled into court by bitchy gays looking for test cases, looking to flog people into submission using public accomodation law, are all over the place.
A town in Idaho is taking the next step; attacking not only a minister’s freedom of conscience and religion, but threatening his literal physical freedom, for not bowing to the beast:
The Idaho case involves Donald and Evelyn Knapp, both ordained ministers, who run Hitching Post Wedding Chapel. Officials from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, told the couple that because the city has a non-discrimination statute that includes sexual orientation and gender identity, and because the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Idaho’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, the couple would have to officiate at same-sex weddings in their own chapel.
The non-discrimination statute applies to all “public accommodations,” and the city views the chapel as a public accommodation.
On Friday, a same-sex couple asked to be married by the Knapps, and the Knapps politely declined. The Knapps now face a 180-day jail term and $1,000 fine for each day they decline to celebrate the same-sex wedding.
My prediction: within the decade, there will be litigation that seeks to place churches under “public accomodation” laws.
There is no “dog whistle” here. The Democrat left has been saying all along how they want to go after churches. Remove their tax exempt status and take other measures against peoples of faith.
The worst thing is, that when they take the next step (as you say above), true practicing Christians will be in the minority. The anti-Christian left will have all the power.
Well, maybe it’s an opportunity. If the state can force people to perform a religious ceremony they don’t believe in, that puts school prayer back on the table, right?
Take them at their word. The left believes that government is a mechanism for privileging certain groups of people and deprivileging other groups of people. They believe that this is the essential, central feature of government, and that the government’s judgment about which groups shall be privileged and which shall be deprivileged are better than any non-geovernment arrangement that does the same thing. That’s why Leftist governments are the enemies of the people they rule. Your pursuit of your goals is illegitimate. Government’s pursuit of its goals will always be in opposition to your goals. Leftists want a world where there is only the individual and the state because it makes it easier for the state to crush the individual.
Corrected if I’m wrong Mitch, but weren’t you one of the small l libertarians telling us baggers we were making too much of this issue?
I remember at Thanksgiving in 1992, my pastor noted the importance of Colorado’s Amendment 2 initiative to my roommate; without a buffer against public accommodation laws vis-a-vis the possibility of homosexuals/etc. as a protected class, business owners would have no defense against their business being more or less appropriated as the “gay” business.
But no, protecting the rights of Americans who believe that these behaviors are immoral was not a compelling state interest, according to Evans. V. Romer. So this one has been building for a long time.
Swiftee, as I recall, Mitch was pretty consistently leery of the “Vote No” people, because of their fascist tactics.
That’s true Lars, but he was also kindly scolding those of us who see this issue as larger than just a couple of broke back cowboys wanting to have wedding dress up day.
All this is tied up in the leftist campaign to tear down every vestige of American tradition so they can replace it with their vision of moonbat heaven, led by the leftist elite.
The American tradition of freedom of religion was more revolutionary than the idea of democracy. Democracy isn’t mentioned in the constitution. Freedom of religion is an enumerated amendment. It is in the bill of rights.
The thinking of the people who wrote the constitution was informed by the religious wars within Britain and Scotland in the 17th century. In particular, after the restoration of Charles II, the Scots Presbyterians were made to denounce the religion that they had sworn, on peril of their souls, to defend just a few decades earlier. This was no pro-forma ceremony. Any sign that you privately held to your old vow would result in arrest and prosecution. Attending a non-sanctioned church was a capital offense. There was no tolerance of non-conforming religious belief.
PW, your hate filled, intolerant, homophobic screed shocks and offends us, we must avert our eyes.
This be next… http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-ethics-council-calls-for-incest-between-siblings-to-be-legalised-by-government-9753506.html
POD that will be a day of celebration for Emery. His paternity thus acknowledged we’ll be obliged not to call him an ignorant bastard.
Public accommodation laws could drive religion out of the public square. All it would take is one more liberal supreme court justice. Ignorant biddy Ginsberg is on record as believing that the only people served by religious organizations are church members.
The German thing just floors me. It’s not as if the consequences of inbreeding are unknown–the prohibition of incestuous relationships derives from a lot more than the Torah of Moses, and quite frankly our laws against it are far more strict than most religious restrictions for this reason.
It is as if the “imperative of diversity” is so strong, we get to not only trample on the rights of religious people, but we also get to ignore things that really are scientifically known.
Maybe this is what President Obama meant about restoring science to its proper place. Evidently that means “conveniently ignored when it’s problematic.”
PM, ignorant biddy Ginsberg will be going across the rainbow bridge soon enough. I just hope she hangs on long enough for a new President to be seated. Any president will do as long as he’s not a Democrat.
Keep that in mind; the only good thing W did in his second term was nominating Roberts…and even that has it’s caveats.
Liberals would do well to read critiques of Ginsberg’s opinion from conservative legal scholars (Epstein is one). When Ginsberg dissents she is universally celebrated on the Left. None of the Lefties notice that she routinely makes errors of fact, and ignores judicial opinions and precedents that don’t support her argument.
Her opinions are parochial, based on sex discrimination she experienced half a century ago and on her upbringing as a religious Jew in a world dominated by wealthy WASPS and Catholics.
Is that bigoted? I’ve read ad hominem attacks on Justice Thomas by respected figures on the Left that are far, far more bigoted than that.
It might be interesting to graph IQ and Incest by country. I would bet that certain nations with a long history of cousin marriage have a higher rate of birth defects and lower IQ than western civilized nations.