It’s amazing! There’s like six threads on this subject, and you’re the first person to bring up this hypothetical in any of them!
It changes the basis of marriage from mutual sacrifice to start a family to the feelings of those involved. This makes marriages more unstable.
Thanks Shodan. What I had in mind, although didn’t express clearly, was Jesus telling a specific person or group of people to repent. The first three references you cite all describe Jesus as preaching a general message of repentance to everybody.
The fourth reference is interesting and I think it supports my view (read in context): Luke 13:1-5
Again Jesus is saying “Those people whom you are tempted to condemn as ‘worse sinner’ than you (because they seem to have been punished by God)? You’re no better, and you all need to repent.”
You think those two women getting married are worse sinners than you? They’re no better or worse than you are. So stop trying to act all holy and let them have their pizza and cake already.
And this was STARTED by the marriage equality fight, how? It seems to me that you straight people were well on the way down that road long before anyone even really considered the possibility of two men or two women entering the institution.
And if you don’t think same-sex marriages involve the same sacrifices straight marriages do, you’re way wrong. I know plenty of same-sex couples raising kids. I know plenty of same-sex couples struggling with one partner’s debilitating illness. There is NO difference whatsoever between a married straight couple and a married gay couple.
And again, your definition is strangely silent about straight couples who cannot or choose not to have children. And how straight couples who divorce over petty crap are somehow not responsible for that “instability” (which you’d have to prove to me is happening before I accept it in any manner other than “for the sake of argument”).
Not that there’s really any point, but the serious answer is, no. Hate-filled people aren’t a class that is protected by nondiscrimination laws.
You can also turn away motorcyclists, golfers, and people who own dogs.
Also, the baker can say, truthfully, that he won’t use cuss-words on any cake, and this policy is uniform across all varieties of customer. No discrimination is involved.
Matthew 11:20, then. Or Mark 6:11-12 might be closer, even - if you preach to someone and they don’t repent, shake off the dust so that you are not contaminated by their sin.
OTOH, do you have a passage where Jesus said to forgive others who did not repent?
Regards,
Shodan
But religion is a suspect class. That message has some obvious problems, but what if a group wants to put: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination” on the cake? Is the baker compelled to take the job? What if it were just the first part?
That horse left the barn long ago, and isn’t going back. Marriage for the last century or so has been about the feelings of the two people.
That was when marriage was “redefined.” Now we’re just opening it up for more people to be able to participate.
But not gays, right?
IIUC you believe that some people are not protected by anti-discrimination laws. Who determines who those people are - the law, or individuals? If it is the law, then I would like a cite showing that the the Religious Freedom act specifies that one must bake a cake for a gay wedding even if it violates one’s religious beliefs. If it individuals, then obviously one can refuse to bake a gay wedding cake, or a cake for the Westboro Church.
Regards,
Shodan
The definition of marriage LONG predates the US Constitution. It long predates English Common Law.
For any judge to change that definition on a whim is beyond arrogant.
“A whim”. Nice.
“Irrational hatred” isn’t the first thing to come to mind. It’s more like “OCD-like neurosis”. In other words, “irrational fear” is driving this just as much as irrational hatred.
I would not be able to worship a god who would view me disfavorably for refusing to be the morality police. Especially when the role model he sent down never did this. He may have lectured. He may have rolled his eyes and sucked his teeth to something some clueless person said. But he didn’t reject people or turn them away.
So the calculus involved in your question goes to the heart of my OP. Is the restaurant owner who unwittingly allows a gay couple to celebrate their first year anniversery at his restaurant an accessory to a moral crime? Well, if the cake baker is, why wouldn’t he be? Why should the restaurant owner be able to sleep peacefully at night, while the cake baker suffers from inner torment because he made a cake for one set of sinners (adulterous fornicators) but decided to stand on his principles when it came to another set (gay couple)? Doesn’t putting so much emphasis on judging others discourage Christians from doing any kind of work that relates however tangentially to marriage and courtship? A Christian would be better off becoming the kind of professional who can always claim plausible deniability. Like a restaurant owner versus a caterer. If God is fine with his children skirting issues of morality by simply claiming ignorance, all politicians are going to heaven.
If I were neurotic enough to constantly worry about hellfire (as many Christians do), then I wouldn’t want to be in the position where I have to consider if giving Phil and Bill coffee is the level of wrong as baking them a wedding cake. I simply would not want this weighing on my heart. I’d much more prefer that my hand be forced by the law so I can put all my energy towards being as loving and kindly and welcoming as I can be. Because this is what Christ told us to do. He didn’t say nothing about no wedding cakes.
Stick to the topic and leave the personal jabs out of it.
[ /Moderating ]
Not a problem. No judge changed the definition. Society is in the process of changing the definition across multiple nations and languages. secveral judges, (and, later, several legislative bodies), recognized the ongoing change, but no judge actually preemptively declared a change in definition.
The default state of human relationships is no government recognition. I don’t have a fancy piece of paper from the country courthouse affirming my relationship with my friend or my cousin or my girlfriend or my barber. And I’m happy that way. If the government chooses to recognize heterosexual marriages, I have no objection, since I don’t think there’s anything wrong with heterosexual marriages. But I don’t demand such recognition, and if the government voted tomorrow morning to cease recognition of heterosexual marriages, I won’t complain.
Every law that has ever been passed was passed because the lawmakers decided their personal feelings on the subject were important enough to impose them on the general population. This is equally true whether the lawmakers are Democrats or Republicans, communists or capitalists, Christians or atheists, anarchists or totalitarians. We can’t escape it. I’m not a special case. We can certainly have a discussion on the merit of my personal feelings, but I don’t think it’s very productive to dismiss them because they are personal feelings.
Most opposite-sex marriages, no matter how problematic, have the potential to become a fully Christian marriage if the parties become convinced they ought to take such a step. But a same-sex marriage can never be converted into a fully Christian marriage, by its very nature. It’s a dead end. The only way for the members of a same-sex couple to enter a fully Christian marriage is for them to divorce each other and marry suitable people of the opposite sexes.
On the other hand, I would like to see the religious tenet that declares that baking a cake in any circumstance, (other than proscribed days of the Jewish calendar), is forbidden.
It seems as though the real problem is that people are making up rules to excuse themselves from providing services based on personal prejudices, then falsely claiming a religious basis.
Nah. One can make the assertion that a same sex marriage cannot be formed under the tenets of a specific denomination, but claiming that one could not be “Christian” arrogates to yourself an authority over Christian belief that you do not possess.
What horrible thing was written on the cake the gay couple wanted?
Jonathan Chance already got me for this one, tom.
My sentiments exactly.
If the 2nd scenario doesn’t present a moral dilemma for the baker, then why does the 3rd? Because the cake is going towards a public celebration of love rather than a private one? Does gay love become a sin only when its enshrined on paper or something?
I don’t know why this thread surprises me so much, when I’m no stranger to Christians who think God actually invests emotion in petty humans affairs. But to be reminded that people can have such wildly different opinions about Jesus’ character…it only underscores to me the folly in trusting the Bible for anything.