If you are unaware about what has just happened this past week in Arizona, here is a brief re-cap:
On Thursday, the Arizona Legislator passed a bill that would allow business owners to deny services to gay and lesbian customers as long as the business owners asserted their deeply held religious beliefs. Now, this bill can still be vetoed by Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona, and it is expected to be addressed by her this week.
In a nutshell, if passed into law, if you are a business owner in the State of Arizona, and you have deeply held religious beliefs, you are allowed to deny your services or products to anyone who is gay or lesbian. That discrimination would be legal is nothing short of an outrage. These are supposed to be enlightened times. We are supposed to have evolved beyond intolerance. We are supposed to be smarter, better educated, and more savvy in the ways of the world.
The supporters of this bill call this a move for religious liberty. They believe that nobody should be forced to forfeit their religious beliefs because they want to start a business or go to work. They say our Constitution guarantees that in America, people are free to live and work according to their faith. .” Yet they already accept a lifestyle of those who live in sin in the form of unmarried heterosexual couples. Their deeply held religious beliefs don’t seem to be too bothered or concerned by this at all. In fact, they never mention it.
From the 14th Amendment to the Constitution: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction there of, are citizens of the United States and of the State where in they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Here is an open question for those who support this bill: are you also going to refuse service to a heterosexual couple that are living in sin and not legally married? If you are an owner of a hotel, are you going to refuse a room to a heterosexual couple with no proof they are married to each other? As a restaurant owner are you going to turn away heterosexual couples who live in sin? These should also go against your deeply held religious beliefs - as a person thumping both the Bible and the Constitution, you should refuse service to this heterosexual section of society as well. But you won’t, will you? It’s OK to go against your deeply held religious beliefs as long as the person or couple in question is a heterosexual. God is OK with this kind of hypocrisy, right? God is OK with cherry-picking what you choose to follow from the Bible.
Jesus himself did not condemn a woman for adultery – not because he condoned the act, but because those who brought the woman before him were hypocrites. He said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Jesus was the only one present that day without sin. He forgave her, and told her to “sin no more”. If she did, not only would she be burned, but so would the hypocrites that brought her before him. Jesus also cautioned people to remove the log from their own eye before trying to remove the splinter form their brother’s eye.
This is nothing more than using God as an excuse to openly hate. Tell all the pretty lies you want, tell them long and hard until even you are convinced they are true. God can see into your heart and knows the truth.
On Thursday, the Arizona Legislator passed a bill that would allow business owners to deny services to gay and lesbian customers as long as the business owners asserted their deeply held religious beliefs. Now, this bill can still be vetoed by Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona, and it is expected to be addressed by her this week.
In a nutshell, if passed into law, if you are a business owner in the State of Arizona, and you have deeply held religious beliefs, you are allowed to deny your services or products to anyone who is gay or lesbian. That discrimination would be legal is nothing short of an outrage. These are supposed to be enlightened times. We are supposed to have evolved beyond intolerance. We are supposed to be smarter, better educated, and more savvy in the ways of the world.
The supporters of this bill call this a move for religious liberty. They believe that nobody should be forced to forfeit their religious beliefs because they want to start a business or go to work. They say our Constitution guarantees that in America, people are free to live and work according to their faith. .” Yet they already accept a lifestyle of those who live in sin in the form of unmarried heterosexual couples. Their deeply held religious beliefs don’t seem to be too bothered or concerned by this at all. In fact, they never mention it.
From the 14th Amendment to the Constitution: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction there of, are citizens of the United States and of the State where in they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Here is an open question for those who support this bill: are you also going to refuse service to a heterosexual couple that are living in sin and not legally married? If you are an owner of a hotel, are you going to refuse a room to a heterosexual couple with no proof they are married to each other? As a restaurant owner are you going to turn away heterosexual couples who live in sin? These should also go against your deeply held religious beliefs - as a person thumping both the Bible and the Constitution, you should refuse service to this heterosexual section of society as well. But you won’t, will you? It’s OK to go against your deeply held religious beliefs as long as the person or couple in question is a heterosexual. God is OK with this kind of hypocrisy, right? God is OK with cherry-picking what you choose to follow from the Bible.
Jesus himself did not condemn a woman for adultery – not because he condoned the act, but because those who brought the woman before him were hypocrites. He said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Jesus was the only one present that day without sin. He forgave her, and told her to “sin no more”. If she did, not only would she be burned, but so would the hypocrites that brought her before him. Jesus also cautioned people to remove the log from their own eye before trying to remove the splinter form their brother’s eye.
This is nothing more than using God as an excuse to openly hate. Tell all the pretty lies you want, tell them long and hard until even you are convinced they are true. God can see into your heart and knows the truth.