If haven’t realized it yet, your freedoms are being taken away in your laziness and silence. Here’s how…
By David Harsanyi, The Federalist
Not only does the court have the power to bore into the souls of shopkeeps to establish that religious objections aren’t authentic, at the same time it can deduce that prejudice is. It makes the risible assertion that any theological problem with gay marriage is really just “opposition” to the existence of gay Americans—whatever that means:
Specifically, Masterpiece asserts that its refusal to create the cake was “because of” its opposition to same-sex marriage, not because of its opposition to their sexual orientation. We conclude that the act of same-sex marriage is closely correlated to Craig’s and Mullins’ sexual orientation, and therefore, the ALJ did not err when he found that Masterpiece’s refusal to create a wedding cake for Craig and Mullins was “because of” their sexual orientation, in violation of CADA.
A person may have gay friends and relatives, they may even love their fellow gay Americans, but if they decline participation in a same-sex wedding for theological reasons, the court wants us to assume they could only be motivated by bigotry.
In any event, I’m sure there will be an appeal. But since most Americans are fine with gay marriage and simultaneously put off by unpleasant (and in this case, deceptive) words like “discrimination” and “prejudice,” the courts, nearly always driven by the vagaries of public opinion, will find a way to force all to comply. This is will go for any other businesses even tangentially related to weddings—food, music and so on. And the crusade will accelerate until the legal lynch mob gets to religious institutions. No doubt, advocates will work backwards to come up with a great legal rationalization for all of it.
All of this is not to say that in American life the minority should never be compelled to surrender to some form of majoritarianism, judicial force or government. In this case, though, the minority does not have ability to compromise without abandoning its faith. The other side refuses to compromise exactly because of this reality. And the courts and commissions around the country are willing to destroy businesses—businesses that sometimes took a large part of a lifetime to build—by ignoring one of the most vital functions of the First Amendment.
Read more: The Federalist
