Some Christians have said that the way to accommodate the new pro-gay laws is to accept them, but build in religious exemptions. That is not going to be acceptable in the gay rights juggernaut.
Indiana has passed a religious freedom law, allowing individuals to claim an exemption in the courts when government action “substantially burdens” their religious beliefs. Now thousands are protesting and boycotting the state, claiming that the law will enable people who have religious objections to homosexuality to discriminate against gays.
Christians need to realize that gays want to be accepted exactly on a par with heterosexuals, and they demand acceptance precisely from those who haven’t accepted them before.
I suspect that even among the general public anti-discrimination laws will trump religious freedom laws every time. So will pastors who refuse to conduct gay weddings be charged with illegal discrimination? I can see that happening. Can you?From Indiana’s Religious Freedom Law: Five Questions – CNN.com:
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence stirred up controversy this week when he signed a “religious freedom” bill into law.
The law has businesses and civil rights groups up in arms and threatening — or in some cases pledging — to boycott the state.
What’s so controversial about religious freedom?
It’s not so much that religious freedom has suddenly become controversial, but rather critics of the bill assert the law could be used by individuals and businesses to discriminate on the basis of religion — particularly against the LGBT community of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.
That’s a claim Pence has thoroughly rejected: “This bill is not about discrimination. And if I thought it was about discrimination I would have vetoed it.”
But civil liberties and gay rights groups assert that the law could be used by businesses to deny service to people based on their sexual orientation and justify that discrimination based on their religious belief.
The law asserts that the government can’t “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” and that individuals who feel like their religious beliefs have been or could be “substantially burdened” can lean on this law to fend off lawsuits.
[Keep reading. . .]
And yet 20 states have similar laws, but no one is boycotting them. Yet.
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