Next up: force the churches to perform gay weddings

Next up: force the churches to perform gay weddings
Posted on December 10, 2013
by The Matt Walsh Blog

http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/12/10/next-up-force-the-churches-to-perform-gay-weddings/

Hello, “gay rights” proponents.

I’d like to ask you a question.

Think very carefully before you respond, because I will hold you to your answer.

It’s a two-parter, and here it is:

Do you believe in freedom of association? Do you believe in freedom of expression?

Wait! It’s a trap! Mind your step, my friends. Think about this. Take a break, meditate on the question, and then come back to it.

OK, now, after careful consideration, I ask again:

Do you believe in freedom of association? Do you believe in freedom of expression?

You do? Of course you say you do. Your entire philosophy is built on these two freedoms. Personally, I don’t think either are actually relevant to the fundamental question of whether or not the union between two men can be equal to the union between a man and a woman, and therefore whether two men can actually be “married,” but I’m accepting your premise for the sake of argument.

Freedom of association. Freedom of expression. The latter explicitly protected under the First Amendment, the former implicitly. Both, in my mind, pretty unrelated to this subject, yet consistently trotted out by gay marriage advocates.

So, alright, let’s go with it.

But remember, you can’t just profess these principles when they are convenient to your cause. Principles are solid things; they can’t be picked apart and redesigned. They carry with them a certain responsibility. If you fail in that responsibility, your principles become meaningless, and no intelligent adult can be expected to take you seriously. This is what forever irritates me about modern America. Very few people have the guts to apply their own principles evenly, equally, and consistently in every situation, all of the time, no matter what. And nothing will get better as long as we’re too cowardly to even believe in our own beliefs.

This is all a long way of saying that you, gay marriage supporters, are frauds and hypocrites if you don’t speak out loudly against this.

A judge in Colorado has ordered a baker to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. This is like something out of a George Orwell acid trip. We now have judges forcing Christians to bake desserts for gay men. Let that sink in for a moment. This is actually happening. In America. In reality.

This baker, specifically targeted by this attention-seeking couple, initially declined to make a cake for the gay wedding because he had deep and profound religious objections to the ceremony. This left the gay couple with two options: 1) Go, like, find any other baker in the area. 2) Try to legally force the man to bake the cake, because FREEDOM.

Of course, as per usual, they went with option two. There is so much laughable hypocrisy in the “gay rights” movement that I have officially decided to stop parsing my words about it. Actually, I suppose I’ve never parsed my words about anything, so I’ll just continue with that strategy. It’s simple: you can’t FORCE people to associate with you and then turn around and preach about freedom of association. You see that, don’t you?

Meanwhile, a florist in Washington State faces penalties for declining to provide flowers for a gay wedding, and the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled against a photographer for deciding not to take pictures of a same-sex commitment ceremony. This, as a t-shirt company here in Kentucky is still embroiled in a legal battle for committing the crime of refusing to make t-shirts for a gay pride parade in Lexington. The owner even referred the gay pride parade organizers to other t-shirt companies who offer the same service for the same price; but that wasn’t good enough for these Freedom of Association Crusaders. They’ve dedicated the better part of two years to destroying this man and his business.

If a man has the right to choose who he marries, a business owner surely must have the right to choose who he serves. You can not argue for the first while actively attempting to undermine the second. Well, you can, but you’re a fraud, and I will call you a fraud. If the “gay rights” campaign is simply about winning the culture; if it’s really, as many of us suspect, about defeating the Old Way, the way of Natural Law and Judeo-Christian values, then these tactics are understandable. Even necessary. But you claim that such talk is nothing but hysterical, bigoted nonsense. You claim gay rights are about freedom.

Well, freedom is a two way street. Freedom can’t be contained in your convenient little box. You can not achieve freedom for yourself by taking it away from your neighbor. You can not find freedom through tyranny.

Try to appreciate the irony. A gay wedding is, supposedly, a victory for freedom of association. Yet gay activists see no problem with forcing Christians to associate with it. The gays who pull these stunts are nothing but spiteful bullies. I wasn’t in charge of finding someone to make our cake for our wedding, but if I had been, and if I had accidentally ventured into a store owned by a Catholic-hating baker, and if that baker told me that he did not want to be a part of a Catholic ceremony, do you know what I’d do?

I’d find another baker.

I’d go out and use my freedom of speech to tell my Catholic friends that Jim’s Bakery down the street doesn’t want their business. I might write a scathing blog post about them. But I wouldn’t attempt to take their freedom away. And I DEFINITELY wouldn’t attempt to FORCE the man to bake a cake for me.

Because that’s just insane.

Many of us old fashioned types have long worried that the next step in the gay rights battle is to force churches to perform these ceremonies. Attention, Christians: this is no longer a hypothetical.

The rest of this post will be addressed to you.

Wake up.

Pay attention.

Are you watching this? If the government can force a caterer to cater a gay wedding, and a photographer to photograph a gay wedding, and a baker to bake for a gay wedding, why can’t it force a church to conduct a gay wedding? Why, precisely? Because the church is a “religious institution”? So what? Where is it written that only religious institutions have a right to religious expression? I’ll tell you where that distinction isn’t made: the Constitution. If a photographer does not have the freedom to express his religious beliefs on the job, why should he have it just because he walks into a church? If bakers, and photographers, and t-shirt printers can be compelled to abandon their opposition to gay marriage, so too can pastors. Do you see where this is headed?

We’re told that the baker must bake for the gay couple because his refusal would constitute “discrimination.” Aren’t the churches guilty of discrimination then? And if gays have a right to not be discriminated against by a baker, why don’t they have a right to not be discriminated against by churches?

The right to not be discriminated against doesn’t, and can’t, exist alongside the First Amendment, but progressives always make up rights as they go along. Often, we cooperate when the fabricated right feels and looks innocent. “Hmm, a right to not be discriminated against? Well, that neither exists nor makes any sense at all, but it feels good so I’m fine with it!” In the next phase, the made-up right is applied in ways that we don’t particularly enjoy, but we’ve lost the ability to oppose it.

So stay silent while the government turns business owners into indentured servants for gay wedding ceremonies, but don’t suddenly cry out when they do the same to your church.

Now is the time to protest.

Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
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To read another article about gay marriage, click here.
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To read more about gay rights? Click here.