By Andrew E. Harrod, Juicy Ecumenism blog
“Extreme, dangerous times” currently exist for religious liberty, Senator Ted Cruz recently stated at the September 26-28 Value Voters Summit (VVS) in Washington, DC. VVS and a September 29 Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty (CARL) panel fully validated Cruz.
While people today are unprecedentedly “forced to participate in genocide” through abortion funding, argued Liberty Counsel religious freedom advocate Matthew Staver, same-sex “marriage” (SSM) presents a religious freedom “zero sum game.” The “greatest threat to religious freedom in the United States of America today” is the “drive for gay marriage,” agreed Georgetown University Professor Thomas Farr at the CARL panel. SSM proponents have “such anger and indictiveness that it’s frightening” to Farr.
“Aggressive secularists…want to take Biblical morality out of the public square,” Farr elaborated. While the religious “first freedom” in America’s constitutional First Amendment uses the verb “exercise,” this secularist view would restrict religion to private observance, something “you get…in Saudi Arabia, for the most part.” Yet “our faith goes with us wherever we go” on issues such as marriage, retired United States Army Chief of Chaplains Douglas Carver stated alongside Farr.
Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the Oregon bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa, vividly vindicated Farr at a VVS marriage panel. Angry boycotts destroyed the Kleins’ business after their refusal to serve in violation of their Christian beliefs a lesbian SSM involving a previous customer. Now fines exceeding $150,000 in a lawsuit under an Oregon anti-discrimination ordinance threaten the Kleins and their five children with bankruptcy. Describing how she “would just feel so honored” to make the “perfect cake that just matched” a wedding couple for their “special day,” Melissa broke down crying. “Everything we did was…for the glory of God,” Aaron added.