| On Wednesday, the United States Supreme
Court heard oral arguments in the case of the Boy Scouts of America vs.
James Dale. At issue in this particular case is whether the Boy Scouts
of America are permitted to refuse membership to open and practicing homosexuals.
The impact of the precedent set in this case, however, will go well beyond
the Boy Scouts. There are many among the gay rights supporters who do not
understand how this case could constitute a threat to religious freedom,
and the answer to that goes to the heart of what constitutes religious
freedom.
At its most basic level, religious freedom boils
down to not being forced to choose between obeying one's God and obeying
one's government. When the government prohibits what God has commanded
or commands what God has prohibited, then religious freedom is compromised.
This is why our Constitution does not guarantee merely the freedom of religious
belief or affiliation but the freedom of religious exercise. It is only
when extreme situations arise (such as a religion that would practice human
sacrifice or statutory rape) that governmental action should be allowed
to dictate what kind of obedience to God will be permitted under the law.
To understand how this ties in with the issue of
gay rights requires an understanding of the nature of the gospel. At the
heart of the gospel is a call to repentance from sin, which leads to the
question of what constitutes sin. For evangelicals and many conservative
Catholics, the answer to this question is found in the Bible, and the Bible
seems to clearly teach that sexual behavior is to be limited to within
the context of a heterosexual marriage.
Consequently, when gay rights advocates go to court
to demand acceptance of homosexual relationships, what they are demanding
is that the force of government be used to compel people who believe such
relationships to be sinful to either reject their understanding of Scripture
or to extend acceptance to behaviors that they believe to be wrong in the
eyes of God.
The case is frequently made that the church isn't
rejecting behavior but is rejecting people, and it is certainly true that
the church has not always made that distinction clear. Homosexuality is
unique where sin is concerned because, whereas a person is not a thief
until they steal, a person can certainly be a homosexual without ever engaging
in homosexual behavior. There are more and more Christians, however, who
ARE making that distinction, and they ought to have the right to live in
a way that says while all people are accepted, not all behaviors are or
ought to be.
This kind of trampling of faith already exists in
housing. Christian landlords who believe that premarital sex is wrong are
being told that they still have to rent to unmarried couples that are shacking
up. One might as well tell a cab driver that, even though they believe
bank robbery is wrong, they still need to be willing to drive the getaway
car.
If the Court rules against the Boy Scouts, they will
have established a precedent that says that people of faith may no longer
live in accordance with their faith. How long will it be before a minister
who has an extramarital affair claims a legal right to stay in the pulpit
because the church is simply prejudiced against adulterers?
Religious freedom that allows people to only believe
but not to practice their faith is no freedom at all. Many came to this
country in search of the freedom to practice their faith. It's only a matter
of watching and waiting to see if the Court will tell them that it was
a wasted trip. |
