A future in which same-sex marriage is enshrined in the law is a future without meaningful religious liberty, freedom of speech, or economic freedom for millions of Americans. Yes, they can “privatize” their view, and go about their business incognito, as it were. But that is a surrender of their freedom, not a preservation of it. As Gallagher astutely notes:

Using the power of law and culture to suppress alternative conceptions of marriage and sex (because gay people find these ideas hurtful and insulting to the newly internalized equality norm) is not a bug in the gay marriage system, it’s a feature. It’s part of, if not the main point.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/07/5905?utm_source=RTA+Franck+Debating+SSM&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email

The article is correct.  Liberty and freedom cannot exist in the presence of gay “rights”.  Homosexuality demands acceptance and anything or anyone that does not give them that will be silenced and persecuted.  We have ample evidence of that all around us.  If we do not resist this new totalitarianism now we will enter into a time of Christian persecution that we have not seen since the 1st Century.

Big Narcissism, as it has been called, rightly understands that the last practical bar to “acceptance” is the response of the churches.  However, we make a serious mistake in feeding the view that this is only a problem for the religious.  It makes no sense from a purely secular standpoint either, and you can back any proponent into a corner fairly quickly since they have never examined this assumption.

“Anyone who makes a biblical stand on human sexuality and the sacrament of marriage will be labeled, tarred, and feathered by some of the most shrill, indignant voices that have ever been heard in our country.”

To restate Father Shay’s concern somewhat less dramatically, “People disagree with us ...and they say so!”

The Bill of Rights prevents government (originally, only the federal government) from prohibiting the free exercise of religion or abridging the freedom of speech. Starbucks, for example, has the right to support marriage equality, and others (the National Organization for Marriage, for example)  have the right to verbally condemn Starbucks, refuse to do business with them and encourage others to refuse to do business with Starbucks. The same applies to the Chick-Fil-A boycott and the Sierra Club’s decision regarding Camp Christopher.

Fair’s fair.

“Cept whose “feelings” get hurt the most?  Whose the most strident, the most in your face, and “acts out” in Gay Pride parades everwhere they are held?  No one can say that they haven’t had opportunity to have what’s done in the privacy of these activists bedrooms forced into the public square.  You know what your are getting and what will be coerced onto all who disagree.

RE: “To restate Father Shay’s concern somewhat less dramatically, “People disagree with us ...and they say so!”

Well no.

You left out the words “shrill” and “indignant”.  The point is that the voices of tolerance and inclusion . . . are shrilly and indignantly and hypocritically opposed to tolerance and inclusion for those who disagree with them.

Nobody can accuse we conservatives as being “voices of tolerance and inclusion.”  ; > )

As to your larger point—I’m all for free market consequences being expressed.  I discriminate against liberal-owned and propagandistic businesses and organizations, and am completely fine with lib activists doing the same against conservatives.

It further illustrates and exposes the massive chasm between us—and I like that being quite clear. The larger the distance between us, the better, including in where we shop.

Remember to eat at CFA tomorrow, August 1.  And regularly thereafter, as well as supporting other Christian businesses that are willing to take a stand for Christ.

Another business to support is the Masterpiece Cake Shop in Lakewood, Colorado, which refused to make a wedding cake for a homosexual “wedding.” 

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2012/07/28/lakewood-cake-shop-refuses-wedding-cake-to-gay-couple/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNgevTY5pJE&list=UUd0zHbtp58-vfdaqG6klBCg&index=1&feature=plcp

They are now being targeted by homosexuals as well.

Great reminders, Jim the Puritan. I’m thrilled that we get to know more about the policies and beliefs of businesses where we shop.

From the article:

I wonder what [The Sierra Club] thought [Camp St. Christopher] stood for.  There is a big cross on the beach and we are a Christian retreat center.

In one Episcopal diocese that I am aware of, the diocesan retreat center has taken the crosses out of the chapel and other spaces because they don’t want to offend any potential paying customers.

#8, well that is a foolish consistency revealing the hobgoblins of their little minds! - they long ago took it out of the doctrine in the hope of getting more folks into the buildings!  Now everyone will know they mean business.

Fr. Shay says:

“God is just as opposed to pride and divorce as he is to redefining marriage. “

You wouldn’t know it from the Diocese of South Carolina’s policies.  The impeccably orthodox Diocese of South Carolina takes a hard (one might say “biblical”) stand against gay marriage, but provides a form right on the diocesan website that explains how to commit church-sanctioned adultery: 

http://www.diosc.com/sys/images/documents/remarriage_application.pdf

I give Dan Cathy of Chick-Fil-A credit; he’s a “defense of marriage” type who won’t give divorce a pass.  I think that’s a position of integrity—a divorced person asking for a second marriage to be blessed should be treated like a homosexual asking to have his partnership blessed:  “We love you, we hate your sin, we cannot bless this act.”

But that position is politically unsustainable.  Thus the full weight of Leviticus and Paul is applied to the homosexuals, while the divorced get to side-step Christ’s teachings on divorce in the Gospels, a theological double standard that irresponsible progressives like me find endlessly fascinating.