Perhaps the Family Research Council has special permission from God to ignore this commandment. Today in an email, the organization smeared Colorado judge, Robert Spencer, simply because he ruled against Masterpiece Cakes owner Jack Philips. Philips was sued by a gay couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, when he wouldn't sell them a cake. Craig and Mullins were going to use the cake to celebrate the wedding they had in Massachusetts since gay marriage is illegal in Colorado.
In his decision, Spencer outlined several very good reasons why Philips broke Colorado's non-discrimination law, including the fact that baking a cake does not constitute religious conduct and selling cakes does not constitute speech.
However, the Family Research Council has pushed all of these reasons aside because apparently the real reason why Spencer ruled against Philips was because he is an "activist judge" :
Like most activist judges, Spencer tries to equate sexual behavior with skin color, a comparison with no basis in science -- or logic. What's more, he tied the case to a Supreme Court suit involving Bob Jones University, in which the justices stripped the college's tax status over its rule against biracial relationships.
I don't have to tell anyone that FRC offered no proof of its charges against Spencer. That goes without saying. Right now, the organization is simultaneously playing defense while exploiting its followers' fears and sense of entitlement via buzzwords. And the phrase "activist judge" is a powerful one to those on the right.
It's a phrase they use when they lose court cases. It's akin to a football team blaming the referee after it loses the game. And in this case, it sends a message to FRC's supporters to not consider the fact that perhaps their positions are wrong. God forbid that these folks would do a little introspection. No, they are not wrong. The entire system is rigged against them because the system is evil and supposedly against Christians.
While FRC's caterwauling doesn't change Spencer's decision, it still makes me sad because it has the potential of changing many people's idea of Christianity. I know many Christians and they consider their faith as one of love and hope. The Family Research Council reduces Christianity to paranoia, fear, lies and a false sense of superiority. Perhaps those who truly consider themselves followers of the Christian faith should ask themselves just who is their friend. And their enemy.
As long as the FRC kind of Christians continually taint the legislatures, judiciary, and government in general, the entirety of Christianity will be looked upon with derision. They are your people, Alvin, you Christians deal with them in the appropriate manner. The rest of us will continue to hope they are treated in the same manner they treat others; with contempt and hatred.
ReplyDeleteScience? Logic?
ReplyDeleteSo funny.
They always dismiss all the science outright. Its done so casually, like its nothing.
Is it logical to proclaim to everyone that God made everything and everyone....except the gays.
Gay people have existed in every culture in recorded history. And during the entirety of time Christians and organized religion in general have horribly mistreated innocent people over passages in the Bible (or other faith equivalent)
And its down to the last group: us.
Its sad really the Biggest Deepest fear of Christians is that others will treat them they same way the have treated others throughout the ages.
"Science" is a power word. Even those with a deeply anti-scientific view of the world want to use the word because they know it is so prestigious.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, "inquisition" and "heresy" and "dogma" are among the words Bryan Fischer recently trotted out to disparage the LGBT movement because he knows those words have lost all positive connotations. They are deeply Christian words, originating in a Christian worldview, yet Fischer uses them as though they were synonymous with "unjust" and "evil," which, of course, they are.
The Christian right has not lost the war, sadly, but it's interesting that they fight on using the language of the enemy - that is, that "science" is on the side of truth and "dogma" isn't.