Debate Over The Right To Compel People To Make Gay/antigay Cakes

[PhuturePriest]

Did you regard that as initiation of violence?

 

I regard that picture as a nice representation of savagery.

[ChristianGirlForever]

I thought this was an interesting article to add to the discussion on gay "marriage." I love how she wrote that redifining marriage is also redefining parenting. When one supports a cause, it is very important to know all about it. If you're a baker who supports a gay ceremony, you will be affecting any children the couple chooses to raise.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/02/14370/?utm_source=The+Witherspoon+Institute&utm_campaign=782782f4d4-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_15ce6af37b-782782f4d4-84098529

[ChristianGirlForever]

I thought this was an interesting article to add to the discussion on gay "marriage." I love how she wrote that redifining marriage is also redefining parenting. When one supports a cause, it is very important to know all about it. If you're a baker who supports a gay ceremony, you will be affecting any children the couple chooses to raise.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/02/14370/?utm_source=The+Witherspoon+Institute&utm_campaign=782782f4d4-
RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_15ce6af37b-782782f4d4-84098529

I just wanted to add a disclaimer. I don't agree with everything she wrote, but I do think that it is good to learn the point of view of an adult child who was raised by one of these couples.

[franciscanheart]

I thought I wanted to respond to this thread. Then I read the thread. :wacko:

He actually countered your incorrect assumption that indifference to sin is charitable and a path which brings people closer to Christ. Maybe you can explain how offering to make a cake that would support and celebrate a union in which two individuals will lose their souls for eternity, separating them from Christ for eternity, is working toward bringing them closer to Christ?

COULD lose their eternal reward. Our Lord is infinitely merciful. I do not believe our souls are lost for eternity when we make a decision like this, considering there is always opportunity to turn back. (Isn't that what the Church teaches us?)

[PhuturePriest]

I thought I wanted to respond to this thread. Then I read the thread. :wacko:

COULD lose their eternal reward. Our Lord is infinitely merciful. I do not believe our souls are lost for eternity when we make a decision like this, considering there is always opportunity to turn back. (Isn't that what the Church teaches us?)

 

I think he's referring to the act in itself. A gay marriage will make people lose their souls, and it is uncharitable to participate in that in any way. However, there is always the chance (And hope) that they will recognize the truth one day.

[Oremus Pro Invicem]

I thought I wanted to respond to this thread. Then I read the thread. :wacko:

COULD lose their eternal reward. Our Lord is infinitely merciful. I do not believe our souls are lost for eternity when we make a decision like this, considering there is always opportunity to turn back. (Isn't that what the Church teaches us?)

Yes, my apologies for the poor word choice.

[franciscanheart]

I think he's referring to the act in itself. A gay marriage will make people lose their souls, and it is uncharitable to participate in that in any way. However, there is always the chance (And hope) that they will recognize the truth one day.

Where would they go to find their souls again? Do they get dumped in the first room off the entry, a coat room of sorts, or is there some Lost & Found wench guarding them all in the dark depths of a basement someplace?
 

Yes, my apologies for the poor word choice.

Just wanted to be clear. :) With so many lurking and the conversation already becoming heated...

[franciscanheart]

I thought this was an interesting article to add to the discussion on gay "marriage." I love how she wrote that redifining marriage is also redefining parenting. When one supports a cause, it is very important to know all about it. If you're a baker who supports a gay ceremony, you will be affecting any children the couple chooses to raise.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/02/14370/?utm_source=The+Witherspoon+Institute&utm_campaign=782782f4d4-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_15ce6af37b-782782f4d4-84098529

There is so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to begin. And lovely that she had to add at the bottom that she adopted a child from China. :wacko:

[PhuturePriest]

Where would they go to find their souls again? Do they get dumped in the first room off the entry, a coat room of sorts, or is there some Lost & Found wench guarding them all in the dark depths of a basement someplace?

 

It has long been a term used that when people fall into states of sin, they have "lost" their soul. Many Saints have said things along the lines of "Thousands of souls are lost every day to Satan." The term doesn't mean "lost" as in "I lost my wallet", but "lost" as in a "lost battle".

[Nihil Obstat]

Or to be pithier, they find their souls again in the confessional. :|

[Basilisa Marie]

Maggie makes a really good point - there's already legal precedence for companies being allowed religious exemptions if they're small enough and are consistent enough (i.e. Hobby Lobby and Obamacare). But that's the other side of it, do they operate as a religious bakery or make discriminating decisions about their customer base (such as divorces, second marriages, etc)? If they're opposed to writing pro-gay messages on their cakes, then they have an obligation to make sure they aren't supporting second marriages and the like. You can't just pick and choose when you're going to enforce your Christian morality. On the other (third?) hand, generic Christian morality is so nebulous and grey, picking and choosing what moral rules you care about seems par for the course for many Christians. 

 

On the other hand, if someone wanted to sue a bakery for refusing to write something racist on a cake, would the courts entertain that idea? I doubt as many people would have a problem with it. 

 

 

[PhuturePriest]

Maggie makes a really good point - there's already legal precedence for companies being allowed religious exemptions if they're small enough and are consistent enough (i.e. Hobby Lobby and Obamacare). But that's the other side of it, do they operate as a religious bakery or make discriminating decisions about their customer base (such as divorces, second marriages, etc)? If they're opposed to writing pro-gay messages on their cakes, then they have an obligation to make sure they aren't supporting second marriages and the like. You can't just pick and choose when you're going to enforce your Christian morality. On the other (third?) hand, generic Christian morality is so nebulous and grey, picking and choosing what moral rules you care about seems par for the course for many Christians. 

 

On the other hand, if someone wanted to sue a bakery for refusing to write something racist on a cake, would the courts entertain that idea? I doubt as many people would have a problem with it. 

 

But that's a different scenario, really. One case is a matter of religious duty, and the other is simply bias.

 

However, in the scenario, do I think the person who made the racist wording on the cake should be sued? Honestly, no. Since when is it the government's business to tell businesses what they can and can't say? I'm pretty sure there's something in the first amendment about that. Personally, I am for censoring such things in a more perfect governmental structure (I.e. constitutional monarchy). However, given our current government structure, you don't have much of a lawful case in censoring people other than "We just don't like that you did it.", which is not much of an argument in the court of law.

[Nihil Obstat]

In reality the 2 questions a business owner has to ask are

1. Is the money counterfeit?
2. Are they asking me to write "Fudge the Catholic Church" in pink swirly frosting on the cake?

If the answer is no to both then a sale is a sale my friends.

This really does not agree with Catholic social teaching which has always insisted that society in general, and each individual in particular has an obligation to bring the commands of Christ and His Church explicitly into public life, and certainly into the workplace as well.
There is a heck of a lot more to it than valid tender and not literally blaspheming. Such an approach strikes me as spiritually lazy and materialistic.
Christ is king both in the workplace and in our hearts. Human respect comes later.

[Nihil Obstat]

Leo XIII, in some ways the father of Catholic Social teaching, said in Immortale Dei:


6. As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose ever-bounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its reaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honour the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favour religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety. This is the bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule. For one and all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the attainment of this every endeavour should be directed. Since, then, upon this depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent. Hence, civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the well-being of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek. Wherefore, for this purpose, care must especially be taken to preserve unharmed and unimpeded the religion whereof the practice is the link connecting man with God.

[...]
 
12. Now, this authority, perfect in itself, and plainly meant to be unfettered, so long assailed by a philosophy that truckles to the State, the Church, has never ceased to claim for herself and openly to exercise. The Apostles themselves were the first to uphold it, when, being forbidden by the rulers of the synagogue to preach the Gospel, they courageously answered: "We must obey God rather than men."(16) This same authority the holy Fathers of the Church were always careful to maintain by weighty arguments, according as occasion arose, and the Roman Pontiffs have never shrunk from defending it with unbending constancy. Nay, more, princes and all invested with power to rule have themselves approved it, in theory alike and in practice. It cannot be called in question that in the making of treaties, in the transaction of business matters, in the sending and receiving ambassadors, and in the interchange of other kinds of official dealings they have been wont to treat with the Church as with a supreme and legitimate power. And, assuredly, all ought to hold that it was not without a singular disposition of God's providence that this power of the Church was provided with a civil sovereignty as the surest safeguard of her independence.


 
http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_01111885_immortale-dei.html

[ChristianGirlForever]

There is so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to begin. And lovely that she had to add at the bottom that she adopted a child from China. :wacko:

I'm sorry you felt that way about the article. I thought she was very respectful toward gay people. I don't understand why you objected to their mentioning that she had adopted a child from China.