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Supreme Court rules for baker in same-sex wedding cake case. Not a clear win for either side.

Marry who you love.
Marry who you love.

This is an interesting yet ambiguous Supreme Court ruling. It’s not a clear win for social conservatives or the LGBTQ community.

A baker in Colorado refused to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding citing religious objections.

He says he has no problem selling a gay customer baked goods. But he refuses to bake a wedding cake due to his beliefs.

The Court ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was intolerant and hostile towards religious beliefs based on comments the CCRC made while they reviewed the case.

They did not however, rule that refusing service to a gay person was Constitutional. Same-sex marriage is legal in all states.

This leaves room for future lawsuits by LGBTQ citizens refused service, but it also demands a tone of respect and religious tolerance by lower courts and commissions.

“These disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market,” Justice Kennedy.

Okay I’m all for religious tolerance. Believe what you want. Until your belief stomps on Constitutional rights.

Because in no world is it okay to deny service to a gay couple who want to purchase items for their marriage. That’s not a religious belief without consequence. It’s discrimination. Period.

So let’s for a moment pretend I’m a baker.

My faith tradition happens to include doctrine that says HETEROSEXUAL marriage is sinful. Why? Because my God/god said so, as recorded in my faith’s sacred text.

Feels wrong, doesn’t it?

But forget that for a minute. Let’s look at religious objections to gay marriage. What’s the core belief?

Because God through sacred text, the Bible, commands that sex is for marital procreation. To make babies. Same-sex couples can’t make babies, therefore same-sex — sex, is against God’s will, against “natural” law.

Fine.

Then anyone who has religious objections to same-sex marriage for the *above reason (see footnote) should stop using birth control or stop having sex.

Right? Sex as commanded by God is to make babies.

Seems reasonable (note sarcasm).

Come on.

Younger generations are laughing, not out of disrespect for religion or lack of faith, out of disgust over an archaic belief that views a LGBTQ person as less inherently (and Constitutionally) deserving of marital rights.

Younger generations (and people who believe as I do) are saying, who cares if gay people get married, it’s not affecting your connection to God, or your marriage, or tax rate, or income or health or…..

My deep thanks to clergy across all denominations who always have, or eventually, embraced same-sex marriage. You get it. Or you eventually got it. Either way. THAT is Godly.

 

*It’s noteworthy that some socially conservative Christians believe homosexuality on its own is a sin.

And that’s loving, how? I’m born this way but it’s a sin? Hmm. Seems the anti-thesis to a Jesus message.

Is that like if my sacred text (for argument sake), says that blue-eyed babies are Godly, but brown-eyed babies are not? Or blond hair vs. blue?

From Focus on the Family website: “Further, we are convinced that the Bible leaves no room whatsoever for confusion or ambiguity where homosexual behavior is concerned. The Scripture both explicitly and implicitly regards it as falling outside of God’s intention in creating man and woman as sexual beings who bear His image as male and female.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/04/supreme-court-rules-against-gay-wedding-exemptions/1052989001/

 

Laura G Owens

Writer. Blogger. Essayist. My focus is wellness, social commentary and personal essays that explore the messiness of being human. Our ambivalence. Our uncomfortable feelings that when revealed, shed shame and reveal our authentic selves.

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Site last updated March 14, 2024 @ 3:00 pm; This content last updated June 6, 2018 @ 4:09 pm

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