I read a recent article published in the Orlando Sentinel titled, “Gay wedding cake case, and others, make Christianity look bad.” The writer, James Coffin, “a member of the Christian clergy,” whatever that means, wrote some things, and since this case is still making the rounds I should address a couple of his comments.
Coffin was right…
Coffin wrote, the “decision concerning Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission stopped short of actually saying that one person’s religious conviction should trump another person’s civil rights.” He is right, the tension between religious freedom of one citizen and the civil rights of another citizen were not definitively decided in this case. We will see more like it.
This is why I wrote in my last column, “Evangelicals cannot have their cake and eat it too.” In other words, if Evangelicals look to an earthly court for justice then they need to be prepared to live with whatever justice that court metes out.
Justice Kennedy foresaw this tension in his opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges when he wrote, “The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.”
So we see here that Kennedy knew he was creating the tension we witness now between advocates of religious freedom and same-sex activists. This is why Kennedy in his decision in Obergefell v. Hodges reiterated the religious protections enshrined in the First Amendment.
The cakeshop owner was discriminated against by an intolerant same-sex couple.
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission ignored those protections when a same-sex couple discriminating against the deeply held religious beliefs of the cakeshop owner in a fit of intolerance, filed a complaint.
Coffin goes on to say that future cases of this nature will come and if the “case involves a Christian, Christianity, as a religion, will almost certainly lose considerable credibility in the eyes of the public.”
In a culture that is hell-bent on ignoring everything God has to say about human sexuality, a Bible-believing Christian has already lost credibility. If Christianity had considerable credibility in this society we would not be arguing issues like this in court.
Coffin infers that Christianity should in some sense be affected by public opinion, but the Christian worldview never has nor ever will be framed by public opinion. The Scriptures inform the Christian worldview in all matters.
Public Opinion on homosexuality…
It hasn’t been that long ago that public opinion said homosexuality was a mental illness, and now says same-sex marriages should be celebrated. That same public opinion seems to ignore the intolerant discrimination by the homosexual couple in this case that makes them look bad.
I remind us all that neither the court of public opinion or any earthly court has any jurisdiction here. The issue has already been ruled on by the real Supreme Court, “Neither fornicators…nor adulterers…nor homosexuals…will inherit the kingdom of God,” First Corinthians 6:9-10.