We get it. There is only one acceptable moral code, it’s dictated by cultural elites, and we will all be forced not only to accept it, but to live our lives according to it, and to public proclaim it — at least never to publicly proclaim any moral code contrary to it.
These are all made clear by Oregon’s government slapping a $135,000 fine on a couple that wouldn’t bake a cake for a gay wedding, and also telling the couple that it’s illegal for them to publicly express their conviction that they shouldn’t have to cater gay weddings.
But there’s one more irksome detail. The Jacobin statist minds that decided to pursue this persecution lack some basic analytical thinking skills. They can’t distinguish between discriminating against a person and not wanting to take part in that person’s ceremonies.
“This case is not about a wedding cake or a marriage,” Avakian wrote, as reported by Kelsey Harkness at the Daily Signal. “It is about a business’s refusal to serve someone because of their sexual orientation. Under Oregon law, that is illegal.”
But that’s wrong, and it’s wrong in a morally important way. If a baker refused to sell a donut or a birthday cake to someone because that person was gay, that would be unjust discrimination, and illegal in a lot of places. But if a baker says, no I won’t cater your wedding, that’s refusing to participate materially in a ceremony you find morally objectionable.
This distinction is obvious and clear, but somehow it evades the Javerts of the Pink Police State.
Washington State Atty. Gen. Bob Ferguson made the same conflation, when florist Baronelle Stutzman told her longtime customer she wouldn’t participate in his gay wedding. “If Ms. Stutzman sells flowers to heterosexual couples,” the Seattle Post-Intelligencer quotes Ferguson saying, “she must sell them to same-sex couples.”
But obviously she did — that’s how he was a regular customer.
It’s not surprising this distinction is lost on a set of people who see only black and white. Once the state acknowledges gay marriage, then everyone must acknowledge and celebrate gay marriage, their thinking goes. All things are either prohibited or mandatory. One only holds such views if one lacks the mental acuity to make distinctions.
Alternatively, their explanations are dishonest, and these people are lying crusaders to quash Christianity and conservative moral views.
from AEI » Latest Content http://ift.tt/1HHAb0k
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