6-11-18<\/p>\n
This has been a week of tremendous news, emotional and important for everyone on every side of (seemingly) every issue. International diplomatic breakthroughs; daring trade confrontations; history-setting economic news at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinners\u201d (for instance, those happy with the Supreme Court’s decision) should refrain from hyperactive victory dances. These days, spiking the ball can bounce back in our faces! We should prayerfully be grateful, but respect the debate if well-intentioned.<\/p>\n
Of course, these days, well-intentioned discourse seems rare. Jack Phillips, the decorator at the modest mom-and-pop Masterpiece Cakeshop of Lakewood, Colorado, is not a raging bigot who barred homosexuals from entering his shop, as his detractors claim. Very few people can even cite his denomination, if he has such membership, and ascribe anything more than his fidelity to the Bible. (Many people do not know the origin of \u201cMasterpiece\u201d as his shop\u2019s name. It is Ephesians 2:10 \u2013 \u201cFor we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.\u201d)<\/p>\n
But Jack\u2019s policy at Masterpiece was based on conscience, informed by faith. The modest, flour-splotched baker is actually in the pantheon of Heroes of Conscience alongside martyrs of the early Church and Reformation; Luther; persecuted Christians around the world today, both notable and anonymous.<\/p>\n
He is consistent, and willing to sacrifice for his beliefs. If that means closing on Sundays, so be it. If that means declining to decorate cakes with off-color themes or requests for sexy or violent images (his artistic talent could tackle any challenge, if he chose), or Halloween or homosexual messages; if his \u201cbottom line\u201d is decreased, so be it.<\/p>\n
Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby close on Sundays too. In fact if Jack\u2019s standards reduced him to selling only a few cupcakes to class reunions, he would proceed. God has given Jack a talent\u2026 and a conscience. He does not need to be loved by everybody, but he would like to be respected by everybody. And he does not NEED to be attacked by anybody, yet within hours of politely declining to design a homosexual message on the icing on a cake, the attacks started \u2013 organized protests; thousands of robo-computer e-mails; automated phone messages; vandalism; etc. In the name, you understand, of \u201clove.\u201d<\/p>\n
My friend Penny Carlevato, also of Lakewood and in whose home we recently shared thoughts and lasagna with Jack, made a clever observation, that America was built on religious liberty, and has succeeded in large measure because of it; but ironically those who hate religion and our cultural heritage now use that freedom to attack the traditional foundations.<\/p>\n
Jack and his family endured emotional distress, a down-sizing of his business, and other privations during the years of these trials (approximately six years). The Colorado Civil Rights Commission would have forced him to express messages contrary to his values; to accept a set of rules written by some external moral arbiters; to force his workers to undergo training sessions in \u201csensitivity\u201d; regularly to report compliance to a state agency.<\/p>\n
Some of his friends were slightly downcast as the nature of the Court\u2019s \u201cnarrow\u201d decision became clear \u2013 that the conflict between conscience and public accommodation was not solved. News flash \u2013 at the current stage of democracy\u2019s evolution, it never will be solved; get ready.<\/p>\n
No, the \u201cnarrow\u201d aspect is that the Commission, on the first rung of this long ladder, exposed the virulent anti-Christian bias of two commissioners. Religion led to slavery, Jack was lectured before he could open his mouth; and Christianity was responsible for the holocaust.<\/p>\n
The gist of the Court\u2019s \u201cnarrow\u201d ruling is that the government in this instance was NOT impartial; exposed a very uneven playing field; displayed prejudice against people of faith.<\/p>\n
THAT, friends, is actually a silver lining of the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision. Because of it, every local board of self-righteous commissioners, every tyrannical town council, every petty school board, every legislative committee, every gaggle of unelected bureaucrats high and low, have been put on notice that they cannot act arbitrarily and imperiously. They cannot display bias against religious traditions, against people of conscience, against Christians exercising their faith.<\/p>\n
In the future, at least for awhile, these little Big Brothers will think twice before imposing their secular agendas \u2013 their revolutionary stink-bombs, their Rules for Radicals \u2013 on the rest of us.<\/p>\n
The martyrs\u2019 hall of fame, those who died and those who fought for individual conscience, and the essential importance of one\u2019s faith, has a new figure, as noted above.<\/p>\n
If the media try to ask \u2013 \u201cSuch a big deal over WEDDING CAKES?\u201d and \u201cIs this really a Constitutional crisis, led by a neighborhood baker?\u201d Let us recall what James Abram Garfield said when he was elected president. He left his position as an elder in his local church in Ohio to move to Washington, and he said: \u201cI resign the highest office in the land to become president of the United States.\u201d
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