What Should Christians Against Homosexuality Do About Gay Marriage?

Forget for a moment that Christianity is a religion based on tolerance and forgiveness. Lets explore the deeper question of what to do if you sincerely have a religious problem with gay people getting married.

Apparently, the deeper question of morality keeps getting swept beneath the carpet according to those who fought to pass the religious freedom laws in Indiana and now Arkansas, so we shall tackle it now.  Given that these two new variations on the theme have attempted to protect the right of religious bigotry more than any similar law before, it should be clear that some Americans think we are all heading to hell in a hand basket- and its primarily for our acceptance of things like abortion and homosexuality.  Forget, for another moment, that humans are divinely ordained with free will and have chosen to engage in every sin that the bible warned about- including the sin of judging others.

Early Christian Americans experienced similar concerns over the years of this country's existence while watching the onslaught of liberal influence, especially in the realm of religion.  Puritans sought to impose their view of religion by legislating tough social standards upon one another.  Citizens considered outside of the mainstream were immediately assumed to be demon possessed and a risk to the social fiber of puritanical living.  Since the religious people of this time overwhelmed popular opinion, they also dictated the community response.

If you need to be intolerant because of religious views
then you might need to follow the leaders of intolerance.

We might have stopped burning you heathens, but religion has never been far from the framework of our nation and it has often been used as a tool for social engineering or as an excuse for the failures in this effort.  When America could not endure the stench of slavery, WE needed to legislatively degrade blacks (3/5's compromise) in order to further the abuse against them.  Nothing changed overnight, but eventually the laws and signs promoting racial intolerance came down and the face of racial intolerance covered up in embarrassment.
But it did not go away.

Ushered on by their insistence in a religious justification to their behavior, racial bigots in America who couldn't abandon their hate decided to hide their faces and press forward.  They quickly realized that America was no longer tolerant of such intolerance, so it became necessary to express their protected freedom of speech minus the risk of exposure and retaliation.

In America, bigots are totally free to be bigots.  What they are not free to do is force you and I to buy into that bullshit.  Literally.

What happens if you can't tell their gay?

Homophobia is still alive, but it is far from well.  In fact, its getting green at the gills and sucking for air to breath, but finding very little.  Less than a decade ago you could almost assuredly walk into a Christian church and hear a sermon against drugs, guns and gays, as if homosexuals were threatening to destroy America as much as our culture of  addiction or violence does.  Today the sermons have subsided a bit, but only if you stay away from red state pulpits.  In many of our conservative leaning churches of America, God is punishing us all for allowing gay people to exist so comfortably. In other words, God needs each of us to put on a hood and push those gays towards their own communities and not into the general public where good, God-fearing Christians live and work. Indirectly, the message becomes one of limiting gay freedom and not one of expanding religious freedom at all.

That Klan Man had a plan to go mainstream.

Maybe we should never hide the face of gay disgust but boldly parade it before the electorate of America as an alternative against those who continue to allow for the ruination of America.  David Duke came out from beneath his sheet so that proud bigots could profess their need for white supremacy efforts, since blacks, Jews, gays and somebody else that I can't remember right now, were stealing America away from the white man.

Yet, this effort is different in some ways.  Our history of intolerance has made us indignant towards the things we insist on tolerating (religious freedom) but even more so towards the things that need to change, like intolerance of all kind.  Way too many Americans have found themselves on the bad side of intolerance to allow new intolerance to be ignored.  When the AIDS epidemic reached a peak, it was often said that we will soon live in a world where everyone knows someone who has the disease.  As gay closets open across the world, we already could say the same for homosexuality- meaning that the face of intolerance is frowning at US all.

Few people in the world live untouched by homosexuality.  Some are furious about the role it has in our lives, but few are unaffected.  If everyone is truly touched by someone gay, homosexuality becomes more than a buzz word, but a difficult lifestyle that OUR friends and family are living.  Those who could be more normal and less shunned by the world at large would likely welcome the change.  So the question becomes, who needs to change?

Who Needs To Change?

What should a devout believer who reads the word and understands the statements against homosexuality do?  If they run a business and really feel awful about making a wedding cake that says "Congratulations Adam and Steve" and not Adam and Eve, should they be allowed to reject that customer?  Before gay weddings became the religious discussion, this was an access to contraception debate. Should businesses be protected by their state for ANY religious view they profess towards OTHER people and their lifestyle?

Governor Mike Pence and Indiana said yes- and they did it without a hood on their head or anything to protect them from the outcry. Now they get to deal with the retribution of those who abhor social intolerance.

The message to Indiana, and Arkansas, and everyone in search of freedom of religious bigotry is that WE have already decided on how these things will work out and we draw the line at the marketplace. Religious Bigots are totally allowed in America, but sometimes they need to put on a sheet to avoid marketplace retribution.  Outside of the marketplace everyone can believe as they choose. Inside of the marketplace, you will believe as your customers dictate.  If the religious bigots of  Indiana and Arkansas believe they can survive outside of the American marketplace, they should stand firm behind these new laws.


Otherwise, you bigots need to change. Not US.

Indiana's Religious Freedom Law. What Problem Does It Actually Fix?

As a born and raised resident of the first state in the union to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, I totally get it Indiana.

Some of what makes America so incredibly special is the fact that we are 50 separate but United States of America.  Whatever laws govern the environment within that state create the environment within that state.  For years now, despite the abject failure of America's attempt to prohibit alcohol sales and consumption, certain cities (usually down South) still maintain dry county status- in that you are expected to leave the city to purchase and consume alcohol.  In such places, most people quietly circumvent the rules, but undoubtedly there are local residents who remain happy residents of communities that have decided against alcohol as a vice.

Does the decision to become a dry county also come with the revelation that revenues typically generated from the consumption of alcohol are secondary to the health and social benefit of banning this mind altering elixir?  I would certainly hope so.  Nationwide, even in dry counties, our war over booze has made it abundantly clear that America loves its liquor and is willing to fight for the right to have it, so the value of being dry is more moral than tangible.



Nationwide, America has also taken bold stands on the issue of marriage.  From city to city, marriage equality has moved like a wildfire threatening to bring equality to a city near you even though many people still view homosexuality as a abomination.  What some of those same people have come to accept is that ALL sin is an abomination to God who doesn't isolate sexual sinners from murderers, at least not in Christian doctrine.  Even if our previously devout strain of homophobia is losing some panache, several unnamed faces are trying their best to keep gay bashing cool.  I call them unnamed faces because no one seems bold enough anymore to simply say they hate gay people and despise their lifestyle.  Instead, they create laws that allow for religious freedom (wink wink).  Indirectly, the message of this new law becomes one that says the ultra religious can now move to a place where they can vote to be a dry county for sin.

Inside of a dry county, revenue is sacrificed in the name of righteousness and righteous living. Indiana's new religious freedom law now allows any 'for profit' business owner to withhold their services from certain people for certain reason's and Indiana will protect this behavior as a religious freedom.  What that means in practice is anybody's guess since the law just got signed and the governor is begging to change it already.  In a detailed op-ed piece that Pence wrote to clarify the message of this law that he signed into existence, he admitted that he would probably not do business with  people that he saw refusing service to a gay couple.  In other words, governor Pence agrees with this portion of America. What he doesn't believe is that he just signed a law that legalizes the refusal of business to a gay couple, or black couple, or homeless couple or whatever justifies religious freedom for bigoted people. So what does this law do then?

Alcohol, tobacco and marijuana restrictions may be rooted in a moral component, but they are social vices- and banning them has always been an attempt to curb the use of these vices.  It doesn't work but there is no question what problem these approaches attempt to fix.

What Problem Did Indiana Fix?

The problem with this new law is that it totally begs the question of what problem needed fixing in the first place?  Were Indiana state legislators being overwhelmed with requests from their constituents that insisted something be done about the problem of gay people not staying over on the gay side of town or eating too much food at heterosexual restaurants?  What vision of accomplishment did the founder who wrote this law and the legislators who fought for it imagine themselves having once the ink was dry?  Would thousands of people rush from surrounding states to sit down in an eating establishment full of obviously straight folks?  Would restaurateurs warn out of state visitors that straight only eating establishments are only allowed in Indiana, so taking photos of straight people while eating is not allowed, especially if you are going to take the evidence back to your more liberal cities?

Indiana has employed dry county politics upon religion and have the nerve to call it freedom.  Even at the risk of losing the atheist and agnostic of Indiana, Pence signed the bill that he could hardly defend when challenged on national television. Pence clearly felt the pressure from conservative leanings, but the pressure to defend it will be stronger than the ink that created it.  Across the world, protests of all sorts have surfaced against the actions of Indiana and its governing body.  The final outcome of this debate remains murky.  The problem that it now creates for Indiana is not.  Indiana is not unique in religious freedom legislation but they are unique in extending it to businesses that make a profit. Much like Indiana's neighboring states with dry counties that happily shun the revenues of debauchery, Indiana will now have to decide if the lost revenue that will certainly come as a result of this lone wolf stand is worth being isolated from the pack.

Over and over, governor Pence keeps insisting that Indiana is not a bigoted state and this law was NOT intended to discriminate against anyone.  What he- nor his legislators that sent the bill to him have cleared up is exactly the reason they needed to add language unique to this old legislation.  Advocates will tell you some weird story about people who work in the wedding industry being forced to do gay weddings despite religious opinions, but you really have to press them on the question just to get this gay wedding example which ultimately admits to the gay bias. Governor Pence already wants legislators to modify the bill to insure that Indiana doesn't lose business from the assumption that this bill was targeted at freedom from servicing gay people.

If legislators add the language to un-address exactly what this law addresses. then what value remains in the original bill.

Pence and his peeps keep trying to convince us that this law fixes a problem by reaffirming what it does not do. So once and for all Pence. What did Indiana actually fix with this law?  I keep getting confused.