Though the wrong seems oft so strong

By: American Decency Staff

Each week it seems the courts and the culture delivers another blow in their attempt to take down biblical truth.  Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court announced their refusal to hear the appeal case of Elaine Huguenin, the New Mexico photographer who was found guilty and punished by the New Mexico Supreme Court for putting her faith into practice – politely declining a request to take pictures of a lesbian couple’s “commitment ceremony” due to her religious beliefs.

As Elaine Huguenin graciously explained, she and her husband would “gladly serve gays and lesbians—by, for example, providing them with portrait photography—whenever doing so would not require them to create expression conveying messages that conflict with their religious beliefs.”

And even though the lesbian couple found a less expensive photographer, they filed a complaint with New Mexico’s Human Right Commission and Elaine Huguenin’s photography business was ultimately found guilty of violating state anti-discrimination laws by the New Mexico Supreme Court because she wouldn’t comprise her deeply held Christian convictions. 

With the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear this case and weigh in on the constitutional issue of religious rights vs. “gay rights” the justices have, in essence, spoken by their silence.  And the verdict is that “gay rights” wins and the First Amendment loses. 

The appalling New Mexico ruling will stand.  A ruling where one justice actually stated that Christian business owners are “now compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives."  The ruling by this court went on to state that such coercion is "the price of citizenship."

The “price of citizenship”??  Have we been transported to North Korea? Since when do we have to check our First Amendment freedoms at the door in order to live and work as a citizen of the United States?  What happened to the land of the free where we have the free exercise of religion?

As U.S. Representative Randy Forbes (R-Va.) stated in response to this court’s ruling:  “The ability to speak freely and live according to our beliefs is the prize, not the price, of citizenship.  And we all have a stake in protecting it.”

Elaine Huguenin’s attorney, Jordan Lorence from Alliance Defending Freedom, told writer Todd Starnes: 

“It is disconcerting because the (state) decision was so harsh that this small company can now be forced by state anti-discrimination laws to create messages that they don’t agree with.  This new authoritarianism – forcing people to bow the knee to a new orthodoxy or they be punished – is very chilling.”

“When people say things like gay rights trump religious rights, what they are saying is the government can force people to believe a certain way – and that is something that in a free society should not be tolerated.”

Lorence also stated:  "Should the government force a videographer who is an animal rights activist to create a video promoting hunting and taxidermy?  Of course not, and neither should the government force this photographer to promote a message that violates her conscience."

Yet that is exactly what the government is doing (with a complicit stamp of approval from the U.S. Supreme Court) – forcing Christians to closet their faith and bow before our nation’s golden idol giving glory, laud, and honor to all things homosexual.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jordan Lorence also warned:

“We are now going to see more situations where people are going to be forced to choose between what they believe about marriage – and their job or their business. 

“What concerns me is there will be an effort to expand these types of hunting down people with wrong opinions. I don’t know how far this can go.”

That effort is already here as Mozilla-Firefox CEO Brendan Eich discovered last week when he was ousted from his position for personally donating $1,000 in 2008 to California’s voter-approved Proposition 8 which affirmed the definition of marriage as one man-one woman.  (A donation that was made six years ago when even President Obama claimed to be against homosexual marriage – until his views “evolved” going into the 2012 election.)

When Eich’s support for natural (biblical) marriage was discovered, gay rights groups called for his head on a platter and the Herodian Mozilla didn’t hesitate to comply – even though the company’s chairwoman, Mitchell Baker, acknowledged:  “I never saw any kind of behavior or attitude from him that was not in line with Mozilla’s values of inclusiveness.”

This forced resignation of a CEO simply because of his personally-held opinions and beliefs regarding the institution of marriage is chilling.  Albert Mohler gives this warning:

This is one of the most ominous developments in our culture in recent years because what it demonstrates is the fact that those who are now pressing the agenda for the legalization of same-sex marriage and the normalization of homosexual behavior and relationships are now going to accept absolutely no dissent. They’re going to purge public ranks wherever they have influence of anyone who had the temerity or the conviction, even years ago, to take even a minor step against their agenda. … Brendan Eich is now the first and most public casualty in this kind of effort to eradicate all dissent. He will not be the last. … it is now quite possible in a short amount of time to hound someone out of office and out of influence for having held such a position or having taken such an action even many years ago. In that sense, his resignation yesterday will become one of those landmark days in terms of the moral revolution. We’ll remember this day for many years to come.

So what are we as Christians to do in the face of such attacks against not only our beliefs, but also our rights to express them? 

How do we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land which grows stranger by the day?  Do we merely sit and weep and hang up our lyres on the willows?  Or do we pick up our bugles and trumpet God’s truth in a world that doesn’t want to hear it?  I vote for the later and with the Lord’s help, that is what I pledge to do.

One of my favorite hymns reminds me of the sovereign hand of God and in that I rest – while I pick up my bugle.

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

Action Point:

Family Research Council reports that Mozilla-Firefox is being “deluged with emails — 94% of them negative — about the outrageous handling of their new CEO … As the flood of angry messages shows, the more liberals try to steamroll the opponents, the more damage it's doing to their agenda.” 

And according to The Daily Caller, Mozilla “experienced its highest level of negative customer feedback the day after its embattled co-founder Brendan Eich resigned as CEO after gay rights activists objected to his appointment.”

Add your voice to the deluge.  Click here to express your opinion to Mozilla about their intolerance.

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photo credit: lindes via photopin cc

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