June 2016
By Daryl Wingerd www.ccwtoday.org You’ve heard about it in the news lately—state after state attempting to pass “religious liberty” laws to protect the rights of Christians to obey their conscience. These laws primarily benefit bakers, florists, musicians, photographers, and others whose services are employed at weddings. The expectation is that they will also provide their services at same-sex weddings or be charged with discrimination. The laws are designed to permit them to say, “Due to our deeply held religious beliefs we do not provide services for that type of event,” without getting into
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legal trouble. In some cases, these laws are now on the books, having passed through the legislative system successfully. In other cases, they have failed due to intense public pressure, the threat of negative economic repercussions, and an outcry against what is classified as discrimination against people who belong to a “protected class.” Given the title of this article, I need to clearly state that I am not opposed
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to states passing these kinds of laws. In fact, I appreciate those who work hard to get them written and passed. I believe Christian business people should be free to exercise their conscience in these ways without risking legal trouble. I do not believe they are discriminating in an unethical or unloving way when they do so (as one would be, for example, if he refused to repair a car, serve food at a restaurant, or mow a lawn for a person belonging to this same “protected class”). The reason I
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make this distinction is that in the case of weddings, the Christian baker, florist, musician, or photographer is being asked to actually take part in an event which he or she finds morally repulsive. No one should be required to do that. However, getting back to the title of my article, I still insist that Christians don’t ultimately need religious liberty laws in order to live according to their conscience. Furthermore, Christians should not learn to depend on legal backing from the government in these respects. If we have it, fine and good. If we don’t, it doesn’t really affect what
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