Cake Wars And The Coming Conflict Over Religious Liberty
by Nathanael Blake, The Federalist:
There is an inquisition in America, and its plans for non-conformists are simple: to drive us out of our professions, shutter our businesses and institutions, bankrupt us and even put us in jail. I wish this was hyperbole. But case after case shows that the leaders of the LGBT movement and its allies are determined to hijack anti-discrimination law to silence all dissent. Consider the following parade of persecution.
Florist Barronelle Stutzman kindly told a customer whom she had served faithfully for nine years she couldn’t be part of his same-sex wedding ceremony. For this, the state of Washington has levied six-figure fines and is attempting not only to destroy her business, but to seize her retirement account. Jack Phillips of Colorado sold his baked goods to everyone, but turned down custom orders that would have required using his artistry is ways that violated his conscience. This wasn’t a problem when, for example, he refused to make lewd bachelor party cakes. But when he politely declined to make a custom cake for a same-sex ceremony, the government came after him—imposing heavy fines and demanding that he reeducate his employees, including his family.
Other laws are even worse. Angel and Carl Larsen of Telescope Media are challenging a Minnesota law that, in addition to heavy fines, could imprison them for 90 days if they decline to use their artistic ability to tell the story of a same-sex wedding. In Phoenix, Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski of Brush and Nib Studios are fighting a law that would require them to use their artistic talents to promote same-sex wedding ceremonies or face crippling fines and six months in jail—and that also imposes a gag order that prohibits them from even explaining their religious beliefs.
This persecution isn’t confined to the wedding industry. Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran was fired for writing a Bible-study book that expressed the traditional Christian view of human sexuality and marriage. At least one Catholic hospital has been sued for refusing to remove healthy reproductive organs at the request of a trans individual. And so on. Column after column could be filled with examples of Rod Dreher’s Law of Merited Impossibility: “It will never happen, and when it does, you bigots will deserve it.” What the LGBT movement dismissed as “alarmism” yesterday is its preferred policy today.
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