Comparing Christians to slave owners and Nazis

You’re probably familiar with Jack Phillips, the Christian owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado (see “Forced down the same-sex wedding aisle” by Sarah Padbury for an update on Phillips and four other small business owners who have paid a heavy price for refusing to participate in same-sex weddings). He refused to bake a wedding cake for two men. The men filed a complaint, and an administrative law judge ruled that Phillips violated the law. Phillips appealed, and the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ordered him to start baking such cakes, retrain his staff, change his business practices, send reports to the government, and document instances in which he refuses to serve customers for any reason, according to an Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) brief.

The ADF, which represents Phillips, recently filed the brief, asking a court to reverse the commission’s order. The brief revealed what commission member Diann Rice said at the hearing:

“I would also like to reiterate what we said in the last meeting [concerning Mr. Phillips]. Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust. … I mean, we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use—to use their religion to hurt others.”

First, that religion has been used to justify atrocities doesn’t mean the government should infringe on someone’s religious beliefs. Second, what do the Holocaust and slavery have to do with rejecting the redefinition of marriage to include two people of the same sex? Finally, since when are hurt feelings the standard for whether to uphold the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and exercise of religion?

Can you imagine Rice saying the same thing about an Islamic business owner who refused to celebrate homosexuality? Christianity, the foundation of Western civilization, is fair game. You may poke fun at it, mock it, and condemn it. You may compare Christians to slave owners and Nazis. You’re free to insult and offend Christians to your heart’s content. And now you can force quasi-slavery on Christians by ordering them to shut up about sin and bake the cakes, or pay hefty fines and undergo political correctness indoctrination.

This is how far we’ve come to breaking down all things decent. A person who believes what God says about sin and seeks to live out his faith is no better than an advocate for chattel slavery or a Nazi. (We could say the same about the homosexual lobby using the power of the government to push its agenda.) People who think this way have real power and care nothing about the religious freedom of Christians.

The Apostle Paul warned us:

“[A]ll who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. …”