How to Live in Pagan Society
It turns out that this situation is similar to some classic moral problems that Christians and other philosophers have been considering for some time now. If you’re a Nazi soldier, can you, in good conscience, fight the Allies? Would it be moral to kill Jews? At what point, if any, does “obeying orders” stop working as a valid excuse? On the other hand, do you have to starve and die to keep from being implicated in the Nazi atrocities through taxation?
Thankfully, an evil empire and moral purity were precisely the concerns of first-century Christians as they wrestled with living in extensively pagan societies with tyrannical militaries. One ethical conundrum of the day was: is it permissible to eat food sacrificed to idols? In 1 Corinthians 10:25-57, Paul lays out the righteous path: “Eat anything that is sold in the meat market without asking questions for conscience’ sake; for the earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains. If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go, eat anything that is set before you without asking questions for conscience’ sake.”
Money spent on food sacrificed to idols ended up funding the pagan temple system one way or another. Paul is unfazed. Like Jesus insisting that we should give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and pay our taxes, Paul shows that the evil actions of the other participants do not preclude the narrowly righteous action of the Christian. The reasoning is, buying food is just buying food; buying food isn’t wrong; what people do with the money does not contribute to your sin...Give up? The title of this thing, bylined "The Federalist Editors," is
How Christians Can Bake Cakes And Sign Licenses For Gay WeddingsAin't even kidding. They're meeting you homo-lovers halfway, explaining to their followers how and under what circumstances they can dispense services to the God-accursed SSMers. Here's part of their summation:
So in the case of a cake for a gay wedding or being a witness on a slip of paper, it makes sense to analyze the act itself. It’s not wrong to give people a beautiful cake. It’s wrong to encourage people to do evil things. If you make your views and the company’s views clear, you can feel free to make that cake. If they want it to say “Congratulations Angela and Norma!” you may feel morally free to do as they wish. As long as they know that you are merely serving their own self-congratulations and are not participating in congratulating, your conscience can be clear.So, maybe serve the cake while turning your head to one side and retching.
I run into people who think The Federalist is an upscale, intellectual conservative publication. And I suppose it is, grading on the curve.
UPDATE. Comments are, consistent with alicublog tradition, very good. Here's a sample by Rand Careaga:
In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Gibbon discusses the difficulties experienced by the early Christians as they attempted to observe the tenets of their faith without participating in an overwhelmingly pagan society. Money quote (heh, heh): "Even the reverses of the Greek and Roman coins were frequently of an idolatrous nature. Here indeed the scruples of the Christian were suspended by a stronger passion."
shorter federalist:
ReplyDeleteI run into people who think The Federalist is an upscale, intellectual conservative publication.
ReplyDeleteThose are the same people, I'm sure, who think the Washington Post is a liberal newspaper....forget it, Roy, it's Washington.
"And they'll know we are Christians by our insistence that we do not approve of their pagan Nazi-like ways, we are merely serving their own self-congratulations in as perfunctory a way as we can get away with ..."
ReplyDeleteHmmm. Doesn't quite scan.
On the other hand, do you have to starve and die to keep from being implicated in the Nazi atrocities through taxation?
ReplyDeleteRemember that scene in CE3K when the UFOs don't follow the curve of the tollway, and just fly off over the guardrail? And the cop cars, in hot pursuit, do the same? Um, can somebody throw me a line? Because I'm about halfway down the ravine clinging to the last bush. Here, I'll flash my light at you, and I really hope you're up there. I feel so stupid, but I swear I never saw that coming...
Well, kudos to the fact that there are some conservatives (not many) in positions of influence (not much) who have figured out that someone who has opinions that differ from yours trying to give you money is not oppression.
ReplyDeleteBTW, homies, landed my first local client yesterday. Small job for a 1/2 page print ad, already done, but they were happy with the work.
If you make your views and the company’s views clear, you can feel free to make that cake.
ReplyDeleteThere it is, in plain English. As long as they know you hate them, you can go ahead and take their money. But the hate comes first.
The argument was stated unpleasantly, but really that for which they're arguing is similar enough to 'acknowledge the existence of a live-and-let-live secular space in public life' to make me think we're unlikely to see much better from them. Think of how far this is from 'Your religious beliefs ought to be the law.'
ReplyDeletePointing-out just how contrary to Christian morals (as they see them) was the empire that Jesus instructed his followers to give its due is an argument I've made to 'Christians'...and beats telling them 'believe as I do'.
That is, I don't like the article, but I can live with it.
That's how nearly everyone is, nearly all the time.
ReplyDeleteI've always assumed it would be perfectly legal for the baker to hand over the cake while announcing he detests the godless sodomites who are blaspheming the lord with their travesty of a marriage and he hopes they choke on it, have a nice day.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like a reasonable compromise.
different shorter
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-P2qL3qkzk
As long as they know that you are merely serving their own self-congratulations and are not participating in congratulating, your conscience can be clear.Jesus gawd, selling someone a fucking cake, no matter what letters are squirted on it, is not "congratulating" them. Nor is having your moron brother-in-law put the cake in the van & drop it off at the reception hall half-an-hr. before the wedding party & guests even show up.
ReplyDeleteActually, unless you're in the wedding party or have been invited to sit in the pews & sniffle at how beautiful it all is, it's none of your effing beeswax, so just naff off already.
"Render therefore unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" and "Show up for your job as a guard at Treblinka" don't really strike me as being the same thing, but I'm not an upscale intellectual conservative.
ReplyDeleteIf they want it to say “Congratulations Angela and Norma!” you may feel
ReplyDeletemorally free to do as they wish. As long as they know that you are
merely serving their own self-congratulations and are not participating
in congratulating, your conscience can be clear.
Blessed are the spiteful, for theirs are the sour grapes of wrath.
The idea that one has to approve of one's customers is a clear indication that one has never worked a job in retail.
ReplyDeleteThe Federalist is Daily Caller for people who finished high school.
ReplyDeleteImagine: all those conservatives who won't sell cakes for gay marriages are bigger and more annoying judgemental pecksniffs than *Paul*.
ReplyDeleteAs long as they know that you are merely serving their own self-congratulations and are not participating in congratulating, your conscience can be clear.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how quickly English syntax dissolves in any defense of bigotry, especially an outright conflation of bigotry with conscience.
On the other hand, do you have to starve and die to keep from being implicated in the Nazi atrocities wars of Mesopotamian aggression through taxation?
ReplyDeleteSorta like the bartender in "The Last Detail."
ReplyDelete"The law says I gotta serve him [nodding in the direction of the black sailor]...."
Yup, that's it. Service with a sneer.
someone who has opinions that differ from yours trying to give you money is not oppression.
ReplyDeleteThe argument seems to be more that living in a non-theocracy is oppression but it's OK to collaborate with the tyranny of paganism.
They need a term for this new reality of living under sufferance, making accommodations with the heathen regime. Dimmitude?
ReplyDeleteI suspect that these few instances of clear discrimination begin very innocently, with chit-chat about the details of said cake or invitations or photography, or whatever, and everything is going fine... until it becomes clear that the groom is not a groom, or bride is not a bride and then, all the previous actions that constituted tacit agreement to do the work go *poof*.
ReplyDeleteKinda difficult at that moment to begin stammering about "religious liberty" when one's bigotry is really at work, but, I'm sure some do.
And word gets around the retail community fast.
Shorter wingnuts: The cake is a lie.
ReplyDeleteCongrats!
ReplyDeleteI guess for many of the fundies, this kind of article is not the answer they're looking for. These people are not even slightly concerned that baking a cake for a same-sex marriage "encourages" the sin of homosexuality. Rather, their major problem here is that they can no longer make and enforce public judgments of morality and then parade their judgment in front of their friends.
ReplyDeleteWhat good is being a Christian if you can be seen as morally superior to all those around you?
Ruben Bolling:
ReplyDeleteActually, that strikes me as a pretty good piece of rhetoric, using Christian writings to persuade "Christians" to stop being total assholes.
ReplyDeleteOf course they will come back with something along the lines of "this quote or that quote in the Old Testament says differently." That's when you can say, if you love the Old Testament so much, why don't you just drop the pretense and officially become a Jew or Muslim.
Since the bloggers rant and rave about "our new totalitarian culture," they also haven't the slightest clue what totalitarianism actually means. Either that or they know perfectly well what it means but are betting (correctly, based on the hysterically shrieking comments) their readers do not and are too lazy to find out.
ReplyDeleteI have friends who are in their 80s and 90s who actually lived in Nazi Germany before and through the war. They're aghast that anyone could look at modern America and make even a feeble comparison to 1939 Germany.
ReplyDeleteBut, for conservatives, disagreeing with their political position is exactly the same as staging mass executions.
I'd like pagan pancakes.
ReplyDeleteWith desperate chips? Or perhaps with a side of bitter bacon?
ReplyDelete"Cake for a gay wedding" = too many words.
ReplyDeleteI propose a neologism: GAKE, GAKERY, etc.
Hold the Scientology syrup, pls. Just butter.
ReplyDeleteThey also never seem to understand that if their "totalitarian" delusions were even close to accurate, they would have been jailed or killed long ago.
ReplyDeleteOr they'd be spit polishing their Sam Browne belts.
ReplyDeleteIt all comes down to the money in the end, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteSociety called their bluff -- forty years of declaiming about the inherent moral right of landlords to discriminate against those shameless unwed couples and single mothers (since they couldn't overtly discriminate against non-white families any more) and pharmacists to shame sexually active women by refusing to sell them contraceptives, and now they've finally realized that their moral high horse is going to cost them real money and that self-righteousness won't pay their rent, and so they have to scramble to find ways to justify their discarding of two generations' rhetoric about principles without feeling like hypocrites.
At least they can continue fooling themselves, if no one else.
I think that we can safely say that 99 percent of conservative pundits have never worked a job of any sort that didn't involve writing self-congratulatory prose and giving self-congratulatory speeches to their fellow club members.
ReplyDeleteThe other 1 percent hated it so much they will do anything to avoid having to go back to it.
But Sensei, how will I know when it's time not to be nice?
ReplyDeleteOh, they have an answer for that: 1.) Obama is still plotting with the UN to round up all the patriots and put them in FEMA camps patrolled by the Chinese, and 2.) it is only their own personal arsenals of democracy under the God-dictated Second Amendment that keeps those forces at bay.
ReplyDeleteActually, that strikes me as a pretty good piece of rhetoric, using Christian writings to persuade "Christians" to stop being total assholes.
ReplyDeleteProblem is, it doesn't work.
Jesus is pretty explicit about how he expects his followers to conduct themselves--the Golden Rule, charity, being non-judgmental, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and so on. Yet mainstream "Christian values" voters hold every one of those things in utter contempt. And no amount of pointing out the direct quoted words of their Lord And Savior seems to make any difference in how they behave.
Sensei looks around. Sensei sees no one else nearby. Sensei smacks grasshopper in the pie-hole. Sensei says "when no one is watching".
ReplyDeleteExcellent!
ReplyDeleteAny day now!
ReplyDeleteTheir major problem here is that they can no longer make and enforce
ReplyDeletepublic judgments of morality and then parade their judgment in front of
their friends.
Precisely. It's wrecking their holier-than-thou bingo games.
Yeah, funny how those 'centuries-old proven God-given principles that men have given their lives for' get dropped like a hot rock when their wallet is suddenly involved.
ReplyDeleteIt demonstrates quite clearly those 'principles' are nothing but fodder for smug "who's the holiest of them all?" promotion. When actual gitas is involved, the game of 'who has the biggest dick of self-righteousness' suddenly loses its luster.
Boot to the head!
ReplyDeleteHere's freebie for the bigots in the room. Start a church. Call it "The Holy Order of Baking Cakes Only for Heterosexual Couples that We're Going to Assume (So Don't Tell Us Different) Are Virgins, Never Divorced, and Going to Raise a Giant Quiverful Family of Indoctrinated Knuckle Draggers Barely Educated Enough Not to Burn Whoever's Convenient at the First Hint of an Eclipse to Bring the Sun Back, Cash or Credit only No Checks, But We Won't Bake Cakes For Gay People 'Cause that one verse in Leviticus that we pay attention to (and not like every single other one) and we think they're icky."
ReplyDeleteAnd word gets around the retail community fast.
ReplyDeleteI know a couple people in the wedding-industrial complex--a photographer and a floral arranger. It's an interesting market in how different it is from most retail. There are no repeat customers. If you're good, you'll get so much business from word of mouth that you scarcely need to advertise. And it's a damn small world. If one baker treats a gay couple badly, word will get around in less than a week. And all they'll do is...stop recommending that baker. Hope he's got $10,000 handy for some full-page ads in the local bridal rags.
I was going to make a joke about heathen hotcakes, but then I realized that "Hotcakes Heathen" was like the best stripper name ever.
ReplyDeleteIf we as a species manage to survive another hundred years and if the country manages to survive another hundred years, this period of time will be referred to as "the Era of Spiteful Feelings" in future American History textbooks.
ReplyDeleteupscale intellectual conservative
ReplyDeleteI've read this five times and it still doesn't make any sense. Do I need to read some more Chomsky?
Have any of his readers pointed out verse 28: But if someone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience.? Getting folks to recognize it's OK to serve customers is fine, but it would be better done by convincing them not to be judgmental assholes(and there are even verses for this!) instead of the "hey, judge all you want, just bake the cake and take the damn money" approach.
ReplyDeleteI like it for that reason too. When I was reading it, I imagined a baker who would actually rather not turn away business. Such a baker might read this rationalization and decide "Yes, that makes sense. I guess I can go and bake that cake after all."
ReplyDeleteI finished the article and thought "Whatever gets you through the night."
Does the rationalization hold up scripturally? It really doesn't matter. Businesspeople need to do business. If this interpretation of scripture helps them to do that, then that's a good thing.
We always need to read more Chomsky. Those colorless green ideas might wake up furious.
ReplyDeleteIf they learn to keep that hate to themselves, then we're one step closer to a civil society, it seems to me.
ReplyDeletePrepared by a gaystry chef.
ReplyDeletePlenty of conservative thought seems "conclusion-first," but this piece of rationalization is transparently so.
ReplyDeleteAs explanations go, I guess I'm saying it's a little half-baked.
In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Gibbon discusses the difficulties experienced by the early Christians as they attempted to observe the tenets of their faith without participating in an overwhelmingly pagan society. Money quote (heh, heh): " Even the reverses of the Greek and Roman coins were frequently of an idolatrous nature. Here indeed the scruples of the Christian were suspended by a stronger passion."
ReplyDeleteAnd that really frosts you?
ReplyDeleteIt's just that finding a Christian explanation to treat people fairly OUGHT to be a piece of cake.
ReplyDeleteIt lacks the clarity of "offer void where prohibited; should only be used under the supervision of a doctor; no warranty is expressed or implied".
ReplyDeleteAh, you're just trying to get a rise out of us. At yeast the Federalist is honest about their true motivation: the dough.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if its true that there are no repeat customers--lots of florists, catered, and bakers really survive on other jobs year round. In fact if you come from that workd you are likely to go to the caterer youve used for ither parties or the florist youve worked with to do the food or flowers for your wedding. . One of the first florist refusal cases was of a florist who had been happilly taking money from a gay client for years and then turned him down for his wedding. I agree about word of mouth as being key to business though. Id also like to point out that a lot of rented venues have lists of approved purveyors--because of insurance liability and experience with bad subcontractors. I would not be surprised if this wasn't a hidden issue behind some of the christian hysteria. If you think that the local park/private mansion/institute wont reccomend your catering company because you are a homophobe or a professed racist or in violation of the ada or whatever you are going to be really out of luck.
ReplyDeleteBut these people dont think what they think becUse they have really personally arrived at this conclusion--they were always parrotting sermons and politicized religious bigotry from their glocal religious authourities. They went along with it because they wanted to express thrir spite personally and because they thought they were at the leading edge of a sildnt majority engaging in popular civil disobedience that wouldnt cost them anything now the practice is priving costly, unpopular, and their own Authorities are split on whether to urge the little people to "go on" (abbott) or "come on" flow me). These are two different approaches one of which is extremely costly to the individual who chooses wrong. At any rate this causes a crisis of self interest, conformity, and authoritarian angst so im rooting for injuries.
ReplyDeletedo you have to starve and die to keep from being implicated in the Nazi atrocities through taxation?
ReplyDeleteI keep wondering why all the fetishism attached to wedding cakes and photography. If you attempt a logical extension of their thinking, then a Christian retailer shouldn't sell a "sinner" anything; not a quart of milk, a screwdriver, a gallon of gasoline. That, of course, is absurd. They seem to think that restricting the nature of their outrage to wedding cakes gives it some kind of moral and intellectual credibility.
ReplyDeleteMorally, and according to the actual Constitution, marriage is between a man and a woman only.
ReplyDeleteThe word "marriage" does not appear in the Constitution. (Nor any form of the verb "marry," or "woman" for that matter.)
What is this "actual" Constitution of which he speaks? Is it anything like Conservapedia?
a florist who had been happilly taking money from a gay client for years and then turned him down for his wedding.
ReplyDeleteThis just makes absolutely no sense to me. I can't understand a human being who would operate like this.
No, no, not "hate." "Morally disapprove of," yes. "Attest to and validate their being condemned to an afterlife of eternal torment," sure. "Openly find them repellent," fine. But not "hate."
ReplyDeleteBonus points for "squirted."
ReplyDeleteThey seem to want their gay wedding cake and eat it too.
ReplyDeleteNone of what they do holds up scripturally. Scripture itself, in it self-contradictions, doesn't hold up scripturally. That's the funny part. This Federalist editorial is Casuistry for Dummies. It also reminds me of the joke Roy cited months ago: "You know it's Moses, I know it's Moses, but business is business."
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, aren't we, and Roy, delighted to have found in The Federalist a rich source of high-grade wingnut ore? Sparing one from having to look at that awful Uncle Sam-on-the-pot logo, let alone the writing, at American Thinker? You bet.
That's because you, unlike this dimbulb, haven't spent your entire life inside a parochial kiddie pool. He is certain that when Adam and Steve tie the knot, the officiant is a Real True Christian under duress--perhaps his children are being held hostage by leather-clad lesbian terrorists--and his cake will add another straw upon his back! Seriously, the idea that Catholics and Buddhists and Jews and Hindus and Muslims and atheists, too, can ALL GET MARRIED (sometimes even to each other) hasn't even crossed his mind. He's a petty dolt who thinks God is as small-minded as he is.
ReplyDeleteThe other 1 percent became the people that the other 99 percent write self-congratulatory shit for.
ReplyDeleteI can, actually. These are profoundly stupid and morally underdeveloped human beings. They have been taking orders on their religious beliefs their entire lives--they have sat through sermons and had the bible explained to them,they have been told how to think about political and cultural events around them, they have been told to turn their moral sense over to a higher authority. And recently they have been told that they are on the front line of a culture war that they have also been told is world shattering.
ReplyDeleteSo what was private and non controversial before (business of selling flowers) has suddenly been invested with a moral significance and they are people who have a terrible personal fear of being on the wrong side of morality, and a lust to feel the chance to spite the enemy.
Plus, they now think there's a payoff in the culture war: crowdfunding.
ReplyDeleteBut Roy seems to be avoiding Rod Dreher, and that's a pity, because that guy is going to drive himself right to the center of the earth spinning in horror at the trans people, the abortionists, and the gay marriage.
ReplyDeleteWell, upscale conservative we recognize and understand. It's the intellectual that must be throwing you.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I don't understand why it didn't appear in the Wall Street Journal.
ReplyDeleteDo not taunt Happy Fun Gays.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that the Era of Spiteful Feelings is going global....
ReplyDeleteIf you’re a Nazi soldier, can you, in good conscience, fight the Allies?
ReplyDeleteIs he actually questioning whether the Germans were allowed to defend their country when it had been invaded?
So it's OK if you tell the couple that they are evil. Why not just say nothing? Because they are self-righteous assholes, that's why.
ReplyDeleteBoth of them?
ReplyDeleteInternet winner!
ReplyDeleteWhy Alcoa is claiming to be having money troubles is beyond me, because they must have sold millions of tons of aluminum foil in the last thirty or forty years, and even more since the advent of the internet.
ReplyDeleteHow could they fuck up a ready-made aluminum foil hat market like this one?
I think they mean the Bible Constitution David Barton wrote, just last week.
ReplyDeleteOr, maybe, he's talking about a state Constitution somewhere.
These yokels think that lying by misdirection is pretty neat. It's standard debate technique, passed down from generation to generation by College Republicans.
Dummytude
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that most of that market has gone over to lead-foil hats. Lead offers greater protection from government rays--and it tastes good, too!
ReplyDeleteI don't want Roy to stress himself for my entertainment, if exposing oneself to Dreher is as soul-destroying as I think it may be. OTOH, I don't think Dreher gets kicked around enough (or *can* be kicked enough). So I'm rooting for more fine analysis of ol' Crunchy Con.
ReplyDeleteGosh, you know, I think there's no explicit reference to "capitalism" in the Holy Constitution, either.
ReplyDelete3) Shut up, that's why.
ReplyDeleteSupposedly the Kleins of Cakes by Melissa (Gresham, Oregon) shut down their storefront and converted to only online sales after their refusal to cater to a lesbian wedding became public knowledge. They really did lose customers though they also gathered a lot of wingnut welfare donations.
ReplyDeleteThis is now really getting to be their complaint, that they want to discriminate in secret, or known only to their congregations and Family Research Council backers. Links at my little piece.
Much like the twelfth verse of the national anthem, no one knows the full saying: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all, unless you want to make it clear that you think something is icky-poo in your eyes, in which case say it very clearly every time."
ReplyDeleteIt's partly that it's so hard to find any aspect of anybody's life that is actually affected by somebody else's same-sex marriage. Just saying "they're destroying marriage" was so empty of meaning, they had to get more specific. The argument was that supporting a wedding is an explicitly religious act, like baking matzoh or something; and therefore you shouldn't be asked to cater to a theologically disagreeable wedding. It's weak, but it's all they have.
ReplyDeleteI hope if it was a half-page ad about gay cakes, you made it abundantly clear that you felt sick to your stomach while designing it, and that they were wrong to be happy with the work.
ReplyDelete"If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go, eat anything
ReplyDeletethat is set before you without asking questions for conscience’ sake, but be a dick about it." —Paul
So lemme make sure I understand the position here... Us telling you that anti-gay views are repellent is grade-A oppression... while you telling us that pro-gay views are repellent is A-okay? Sure, that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteBut that's what the First Amendment says! If you say it backwards while watching a Pink Floyd video with the sound off, or am I getting this wrong?
ReplyDeleteY'all have put me in the Christmas spirit.
ReplyDeleteI just had to look it up to make sure that there AREN'T twelve verses to the national anthem.
ReplyDeleteNope, just four. In case anyone asks me, I'll know.
Eh, Rod's almost self-parodying at this point. I'm too lazy to look, but there are apparently daily updates from his 110% heterosexual no-girls-invited explore-the-manly-many-tastes-of-Europe tour. If you have a really strong stomach, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI think it's related to the idea that if you listen to the soundtrack of The Wizard of Oz while staring at a Pink Floyd album cover, everything seems to sync up after awhile...
ReplyDeleteBut that's the point of the word "if" in that sentence. Their cooperation in ordinary commerce with the public is conditional on them being dicks about it.
ReplyDeleteThat "if" says it clearly, and also says that IF they DON'T make their views clear, if they, as you put it, keep that hate to themselves, THEN they have no moral cover at all. How they got that from the scripture they cite is a bit of a mystery; it says, in rare clarity, that you are free to participate in your neighbors' joyful, if blasphemous, celebration and doesn't require you to be a dick at all.
If anything, that "without asking questions for conscience's sake" describes exactly what they're doing now. Paul is telling them as directly as possible to knock off the self-aggrandize get, self-righteous bullshit and try being nice for a change.
You'd think by now I'd be used to people who can't be bothered to read even the bits they quote directly. And these are their smart ones.
Do you think any of these alleged editors read the part they wrote about you not being morally culpable for what others do with the money you pay them and thought of Hobby Lobby?
Easy for whitey to say.
ReplyDeleteOh no. I baked the cake with love. But now that I looked at the order I have to frost it with hate. I hope it tastes right. Or do I? It's all so confusing.
ReplyDeleteBecause....because, that's why!
ReplyDeleteThe reasoning is, buying food is just buying food; buying food isn’t wrong; what people do with the money does not contribute to your sin...
ReplyDeleteThis is not the Catholic theology I was raised with. Sounds more like carnival barkery than theology. So let's cross-examine Paul like a good Jesuit/Perry Mason:
So Paul, you mean to tell me that if you're selling your car because you need the cash to buy a gun to kill your wife, I'd be a fool to walk away from your low low price? So I buy your car (fine Corinthian leather) -- and what you do with the cash doesn't contribute to my sin?
Huh. Okay, now you tell me you're selling heroin, and I've always been curious about heroin, so I --
Oh FFS, quit right there. Not one asshole nodding along while reading this in The Federalist would say anything about sending money to the Sinaloa Cartel except that it's a black mark on your soul. And that gives their game away: Religion is not sincere belief for them, it's a cynical ploy to tweak until it justifies whatever the hell they want to do. Otherwise instead of telling us God wants you to stay in business and also spit on the fruits, they'd be writing essays looking into whether God wants you to buy cell phones because the cell phone companies are just gonna use that money to send more 11-year-olds to die in their cadmium mines. I haven't fully Jesuited THAT one out, but I will bet the answer is Fuck No, God does not think that's just fine even though those kids were paid 40 cents a day which made them rich given the local economy.
Yep. As well, they perceive a difference between selling flowers to a gay couple for, say, a graduation party, a business event, a funeral, a formal dinner, an opening at the theater or gallery, or just twice-weekly delivery of pretty blossoms for the vases around the house. But weddings? Aw, hell no.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it either.
Thank God that this time St. Paul has been allowed to win a victory for common-sense instead of twitchiness. I'm so happy; so often it's the other way around.
ReplyDelete"Even the reverses of the Greek and Roman coins were frequently of an idolatrous nature. Here indeed the scruples of the Christian were suspended by a stronger passion."
Whereas ours are Masonic as opposed to strictly pagan — but since we've always done it I guess it's okay.
The rest of us - if we need this sort of thing explained at all - can get it via someone saying "just because you bake a cake/print a banner/fill a prescription/serve an egg salad sandwich doesn't mean you support or even like the people you're doing it for". These jokers need entire articles. How stupid is stupid?
ReplyDeleteTheir great-grandparents have eaten rotten apples and their own teeth are set on edge.
ReplyDeleteYep, and it's probably okay to go ahead and use Proctor and Gamble products.
ReplyDeleteAgain, that's easy for whitey to say. Non-whitey is jailed in ridiculously disproportionate numbers and routinely executed by law enforcement, just like in a totalitarian (without the sarcasm quotes" society.
ReplyDeleteSo when you write "totalitarian" in sarcasm quotes, it strikes me as the Jerry Seinfeld version of the old "first they came for the communists, but I wasn't a communist."
Only now it's "they jailed and killed black people, but I wasn't a black person..."
It's okay to gamble with the proctor.
ReplyDeleteW00t, as the kool kidz used to say.
ReplyDeleteThey really love to pretend they are Martyrs to the cause because now they don't really have to deal with things like what happened to St. Magnus of Orkney who was killed with the blow of axe to the back of his head. That was being a martyr not having to bake cakes for gay couples getting married.
ReplyDeleteThat stronger passion is pretty familiar to American Griftian--er, Christian community.
ReplyDeleteI think they are just really susceptible to being told what to think. Its not that they "see a difference" between treating gay person X as a customer and treating gay person's wedding business as though it were officiating at the wedding itself. Its that they have been told that this is the case, they move in social circles where this is the case, and they are extremely pliable. If their ministers and tv station "friends" and social circle had told them to go out and stone gays to death for moving onto the block, they would have happilly done that too. This is what akes them authoritarian followers. They do what they are told and retroactively rationalize it afterwards. **
ReplyDelete**I'm strongly influenced here, of course, by the part of Altemeyer's book on authoritarian personalities in which he asks his authoritarian students where they would draw the line in spying on, or reporting to the authorities, or torturing,persons identified as memvers of terrorist organizations. He varied the definition of terrorist organization to include "Members of the Canadian Milk Board" which he knew many of the students belonged to and they still decided that if the authorities told them it was a "suspect group" they would willingly spy on and even apprehend and torture members.
With that definition or that mind set involved I can well imagine that even the christianists with basic human feelings on tap--who identify with the gay customer qua mother, daughter, friend, neighbor etc...may feel forced, by their religious training and authoritarian personality, to hew to the oppressive act even more strongly. Because you have to squelch so much humanity to do so that you have to make it worthwhile. Its the same psychological trick that causes people who pay more for something to value it more and to feel that it is more necessary or satifsying to them than the same object that was priced lower.
Oof, you're right. When Obama leaves office without seizing one gun or declaring a single martial law, they'll say "He was about to, but we scared him out of it! What do you think Jade Helm was all about? We saved the USA!" [waves confederate flag]. Today it's two thousand morons in Texas; in 2055, the Legend of Jade Helm will be gospel to millions of blockheads all across this great but could be better nation.
ReplyDeleteI danced for a while as Bacon Dagon but it didn't quite work.
ReplyDeleteThey've already used that one up.
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion is Whinitude. For what they'll do plus what they'll drink, not necessarily in that order.
Maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but I seem to have missed the shrieking right-wing butthurt that accompanied Catholic people being required — nay, forced, Stalin-style! — to perform their public duties for people who were divorced, despite it (presumably) going against their religion.
ReplyDeleteI guess persecution is in the eye of the beholder.
I don't think you read the Federalist story. They actually think we're living in a totalitarian culture (their words, not mine) because they can't hide behind their religion to discriminate against people their invisible sky friend tells them to hate.
ReplyDeletePS: "Whitey?"
I think you're losing all perspective.
ReplyDeleteIf food is sacrificed to idols, how do you eat it? Do they sacrifice it without altering it? Not much of a sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteDid you read the quoted bit? Not once but twice, they say that it's ok to do business with those icky gays but only IF you make sure they know how you feel about it. Then, and only then, are you morally in the clear.
ReplyDeleteThey are saying Christian businesses have a Biblical obligation to be dicks to their sinful customers. Not to stop being assholes, but to be bigger assholes.* Really.
It's actually really shitty piece of rhetoric, deliberate (or possibly just stupid) misreading of Christian writings to persuade Christians to be even bigger assholes, and not even showing basic reading comprehension of the bit they quoted themselves. "... without questions of conscience." it says. So they interpret that as *requiring* questions of conscience. As usual, up is down in the conservative bizarro- world.
As rhetoric goes, it's as bad and as counterproductive to creating a civil society as declaring not a dimes worth of difference between the parties and repeatedly calling the President "Obamney" to try to convince others that voting is pointless.**
* Yep, bigger. Refusing service is bad enough. Providing degraded, deliberately bad service that insults one's customers while still taking their money makes one a bigger asshole.
** Yep, still kinda pissed at that.
How exactly are you supposed to "make your views clear" so that "they know that you are merely serving their own self-congratulations and are not participating in congratulating"?
ReplyDelete"Here you go, dyke! May you and your fellow lesbo have a long and happy perverted life."
Shut up, he explained. (Which is a corollary to the classic "because, shut up.")
ReplyDeleteNor is baking & decorating a cake for people you don't like exactly the same as Treblinka. For instance, a person refusing to work at Treblinka could not make half a million dollars on GoFundMe. Huh.
ReplyDeleteYay You!
ReplyDeleteWhat about Turning The Other Cheek and Love Thy Enemy As Thyself? I'd really like to know.
ReplyDeleteNo, the problem is that's not what they're doing. They're trying to rationalize being bigger dicks to people by claiming a moral obligation to be dicks to people. Do you see the "if" statements? IF one tells the gay couple one disapproves, then and only then is it morally justifiable to do business with them. Keeping their mouths shut and being polite to customers isn't sufficient, one has to express disapproval and be a dick or one is condoning sin.
ReplyDeleteTheir intent is both mean and dishonest. Why does anyone here want to give them credit for trying to be nice? They don't deserve such because they're not doing that. They're once again justifying the assholes and in this case being particularly dishonest about it.
That's the comment-of-the-day. I hated each and every customer (at Winchell's Donuts) who came in, with a few exceptions (the sweet little girl who kissed the glass case where her desired donut was). I even made up nasty names for the "regular" creeps ("Scraggle-Hair" was a store favorite -favorite to loathe).
ReplyDeleteMaybe decorating a cake or arranging flowers is such a spiritual experience, almost religious? Or something?
ReplyDeleteJust call it Red Velvet. It'll get covered in hate soon enough.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they're wallowing in the support they get from their church and community? Must be wonderful to be the Martyr Of The Day!
ReplyDeleteToday Rod's off getting plastered at the beach while suffering through The Brothers Karamazov, the life story of bipolar people everywhere. Let's see how much of himself he recognizes in it.
ReplyDeleteHis lifestyle has become a lot lazier and boozier since the guild took him aside about two years ago and clued him in that the conservative thing isn't mostly a grift, it's all a grift.
The argument I hear from those on the right is that it isn't about the cake per se, but about the writing on the cake, i.e. requiring them to write "Happy Marriage Bob and Steve" is requiring you to publicly endorse their wedding.
ReplyDeleteWhich is a crap argument, but there it is.
Humm. I'm considering taking cake-decorating classes, as I'll have to support myself in my declining years (divorced). Suppose the KKK wanted me to decorate a cake? I'd be scared to say no, but unwilling to do the task. Couldn't I just, you know, call in sick or something?
ReplyDeleteIt's more like, "acknowledge the existence of a public life in which we may insult people to their faces and they still do business with us because, look, we're not hanging them from trees no matter how much we want to and how much they deserve it, and we haven't a leg to stand on legally or morally but we insist you pretend we do."
ReplyDeleteI agree that we can't expect better from them anytime soon, but it's hardly even an accommodation. At best, it's an acknowledgement that they've lost the legal battle (for now), coupled with an insistence that the True Christians will still be assholes to gay people because they have to be.
You can live with that? Well, good for you, I guess.
(Man, I'm pissed off this morning. I should really get off the internet.)
Jesus fuck. The only reason anyone tell you they're reading The Brothers Karamazov is because they're trying to impress you with pseudo-intellectual bullshit. If they liked the book, they'd just read it. Rod's chosen audience will be impressed enough by the fact that Rod knows the goddamn title to a piece of Russian literature besides War and Peace.
ReplyDeleteIt goes a little something like this...
ReplyDeleteOr just do a sloppy job? My sister decorates cakes and made me a cake for my wedding shower... it was hideous, a prime candidate for "cakewrecks" if it had existed then. So, anyway, I wondered if she was disapproving of my marriage or just a terrible decorator? And I never recommended her to anyone.
ReplyDeleteEh, the idols don't eat much. Leftovers for the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteA step closer than they'd actually be comfortable with. The thing about these Christianists is, their opinion about everything is more important than all the things themselves, and if they have to shut up about it to get along, and be [shudder] "civil", well, where's the fun in that? And what good are all those infidels and sinners if they don't know their place, and if you don't tell 'em, who will? All in all it's just another nail in the cross...
ReplyDeleteReligion is just another rationalization excuse for authoritarians?
ReplyDeleteThat shit won't be in teh New Bibble. If they ever actually finish it.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention his supposed conversion to Russian Orthodoxy. The Brothers Karamazov is about as heavy-handed a secular apology you can get for certain forms of Orthodoxy (especially the redemption-through-suffering kind). Not to mention that its author was an unpleasant human being who is fetishized too much by pseudo-intellectuals of all kinds.
ReplyDeleteOf course, none of this prevents the book from being great literature (which it is). I just really don't like Dostoyevsky. YMMV.
And you can get it in a large variety of colors--right off the wall!
ReplyDeleteOh! Its my new christian t shirt biz!
ReplyDeleteDon't answer if this is too personal, but have you seen any of the cakes she decorated for other people?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that the question of whether she's just a terrible decorator should be an observable thing.
Satan is strengthened by such dishonesty in service to hatred, it's like the devil's food, really.
ReplyDeleteIf you're arranging flowers and it becomes a spiritual experience, then you're doing it right (in my opinion.)
ReplyDeleteAll four equally unsingable.
ReplyDeleteEven for an erection lasting more than four hours?
ReplyDeleteIndeed. "gaystry" requires a "y," but I was on the fence about "gake" vs. "gayke"
ReplyDeleteAh, Proctor & Gamble & Satan. Fred Clark at Slactivist wrote some years ago about his own experience as an RTC back in those days. The part I recall most, besides his larger point about people really wanting to believe the world is way scarier than it is just to make their own lives interesting and meaningful*, was that the P&G rumors were started by the same family that started Amway, an MLM scheme that sold mostly household cleaning products but couldn't break P&G's market dominance.
ReplyDeleteThou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Except Against A Business Competitor. That's in the Bible, right?
*My cat does this. She lives an exciting life of constant danger and thrills. Sometimes even leaving the house for a while before racing back inside to hide from the people who feed and pet her.
Yeah, all pretty unsingable.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to see a reference to slavery in the third verse, though. I'll bet that doesn't get sung often.
Real deities don't eat much either.
ReplyDeleteBy "good" rhetoric, I didn't mean morally good rhetoric, just rhetoric that effectively gives religious nutcases with no real understanding of historical Christianity a persuasive argument to just bake the fucking cake.
ReplyDeleteForgot about good old Obamney, but now that you bring it up again, still not sure how it would have been all that different, or that voting in national elections is not pointless. The two elections I've voted in where it was close enough to perhaps have mattered, were both settled by political means and i'm pretty sure that on neither occasion did the real winner get the job.
Or better yet, vote for Bernie. You know, four years before I caught shit for pointing out the many similarities between Obama and Romney, I caught shit from the same centrist rea-lpolitikers for using my massive influence to get people to vote for Obama over Hilary.
Anyway, the wheel turns. Go ahead, vote for Jeblary, see what I care?
In The Spanish Bride Mrs. Harry Smith describes the officers as either "go ons" or "come ons"--i.e. either pushing the men forward or leading them forward. You definitely get the sense from the kinds of statements by Abbott in Texas and some of the other local leaders that the Lawyers and the Ministers of these communities are shouting "go on! go on! great work!" while ducking and covering themselves and not taking any actual risks. So although I think that some of these moron florists/bakers like the morons refusing to sign the marriage licenses enjoy a little local celebrity and popularity that, in the end, they are not going to enjoy being hung out to dry legally.
ReplyDeleteI loved the scene in a Pratchett novel, forget which, in which we see that the gods of Discworld subsist on the pleasing aromas of cooked sacrifices. So, a supplicant seeking the god's (or temple's) favor would bring, say, a string of sausages to the temple, the priest would cook them up on a grill placed under the nose of the idol, and declare the god pleased as he munched on the sausages and asked what favor is required of the god.
ReplyDeleteI have zero doubt that's how it has always worked and still does. Ever seen a Shinto priest blessing the site of a new office tower? Think that priest's temple didn't get paid? A lot? Think if they didn't, that their political influence on, say, local zoning boards wouldn't be a major hindrance to the builder that didn't pay them first? It's like the corruption of literally selling their blessings is obvious enough that extortion becomes a form of piety.
Well, you seemed to be saying we're not living in a totalitarian culture here in America. Sure, if you're just saying we're not living in the totalitarian the conservatives think we're living in, then fine. Otherwise, it sounds kind of naive given how much evidence we see almost everyday that just because it may not be a totalitarian culture for some citizens, it's not a totalitarian culture for anybody.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting person to meet: the adherent to a religion whose founder was ignominiously abandoned to martyrdom and whose greatest heroes were likewise martyred and whose chief tenets include the necessity of martyrdom, who expects no martyrdom.
ReplyDeleteThe imitation of Christ has always been fraught with difficulty.
ReplyDeleteWWDTD ? What would Donald Trump do?
ReplyDeleteHow do you blame the Muslims or the Jews for the mangled version of the Torah that Christians call the "Old Testament?" Its got nothing to do with Judaism or Islam other than a few shared figures.
ReplyDeleteHeh-heh.
ReplyDeleteNo it means that if yo listen to a Judy Garland record while stoned it will make you want to gay marry Roger Waters.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the "cake decoration/photography is a 'creative act' & you can't make us use our Gawd-given creativity to support sin & EVIL!!1!"
ReplyDeleteAnti-discrimination laws I know about refer to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, but not Klan affiliation. I think you'll be OK turning them down.
ReplyDeleteDid you ever read Hawthorne's The Celestial Railroad?
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestial_Railroad
To quote Thomas à Kempis, "tough shit."
ReplyDeleteInsult John McCain's war record?
ReplyDeleteNot allowed if it's the United Snakes invading your shitty little country, no.
ReplyDeleteIf it's Paul, "Be a dick about it" is automatically implied.
ReplyDeleteDAVID: Nom-nom-nom
ReplyDeleteHIGH PRIEST: Hey, that's our ... uh, the Lord's bread.
DAVID: [Brandishes rock]
HIGH PRIEST: ... Do you see anything else you like?
The DeVos family (Amway) is super creepy and they fund quite a number of wingnut causes.
ReplyDeleteThanks for explaining the "go ons" or "come ons."
ReplyDeleteI wondered what that meant when you mentioned it before.
I have zero doubt that's how it has always worked and still does.Yup. You might remember a story from Greek myth called the Trick at Mekone(?), where Prometheus covers up the bones with shiny white fat, and the meat with entrails, then asks Zeus to pick a pile. Zeus chooses the one that looks nicer. Hence, the junk gets sacrificed to the gods, and the good stuff can be eaten by mortals.
ReplyDeleteI will say that we're not a totalitarian culture. By definition, because of our strong individualism, diversity, and structural factionalism. In a totalitarian US, we would all be subject to the same poor treatment, all equally and *totally* oppressed. No dissent allowed by anyone, literally everything in our lives either forbidden or mandatory with no room for personal choices or preferences. Do you think that's the case in the US today?
ReplyDeleteAuthoritarian yes. Police state even, yes. For minorities mostly, this is true but for us white folks it's really not. Our individual rights are generally respected by the state. Totalitarian is something else. Are black folks required or expected to live their lives entirely for the State? No. Does anyone in any part of America's wildly varying political mashup advocate for totally subsuming black folks' individual identities to the state? No, even pro-slavery Neo-Confederates come to their positions from a property rights argument.
They may only respect the rights of other whites, but they sure as hell don't see the State as the only legit power. Hell, their whole "Soveriegn Citizen" thing is about rejecting ANY legit authority of the State. Has the State supplanted religion as the only acceptable authority on anything? No.
Point is, words mean things. Totalitarianism is not Authoritarianism is not Fascism is not Communism is not Dominionism. These are different things, which have different affects and come from different sources, no matter how similar the boots feel on your own neck. When you use totalitarian to mean authoritarian, you don't actually make sense and do a disservice to truth by exaggeration. Fighting totalitarianism when authoritarianism is the problem is like fighting Communists while the Fascists are setting up shop. It doesn't help. It confuses people, your allies, who know what the word means and don't see what the word describes. There's plenty of shit to go around here but that particular stench is largely absent.
By calling it by the wrong name, you set up a straw man that's easily dismissed. By addressing totalitarianism, you're missing the authoritarianism, fascism, and white supremacism that are the real problems.
Yes, it's a rhetorical argument. Aren't they all?
Now I'm just arguing for its own sake. I'll stop now.
Well, the rotten fuckers rarely pass up the chance to look pie-ous.
ReplyDeleteAlways reminds me of the old joke with the punch line, "But what about us grils?"
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize they were saying that.
ReplyDeleteUsing the creative angle, I mean.
Well, technically, by definition [pushes up glasses], if the culture's not totally totalitarian, it's not totalitarian.
ReplyDeleteHe's a petty dolt who thinks God is as small-minded as he is.
ReplyDeleteMore accurately, he's a petty dolt who HOPES God is as small-minded as he is when it comes to judging everyone else, and KNOWS that God is as tolerant as Jesus and Gandhi when it comes to judging his own shitty self.
*Gasp* We're living in a Fractionalitarian dystopia!
ReplyDeleteGraphic:
ReplyDeleteCan I get a slice of this comment, to go?
ReplyDeleteAssault and batteries not included?
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's surrender. Grudging and pissy, but they know they've lost!
ReplyDeleteReally? I didn't know that. I thought the Pentateuch was the Pentateuch and pretty much the same in all three religions. Are you sure?
ReplyDeleteSanders' my candidate too. But see, even this "Jeblary" thing is bullshit. You're still clinging to this "they're all the same party" crap and it's no more true than it's ever been. If anything, the shitshow in the goopers' current preseason games makes it even more ridiculous than in 2012.
ReplyDeleteIt's like this: Clinton, the most likely nominee, is a Wall Street suck up who can't be trusted to defend the working class any more than she has to and is way too hawkish for most Democrats and will need to find some political cover from her own party if she wants to go to war, perhaps by trading some pro-social agenda item for it, and can be trusted to nominate SCOTUS justices like Kagan or Sotomayor. On climate and environment, expect some "market-based" solutions that partially address some issues while preserving corporate profits. On civil rights and especially women's rights, expect a fighting ally.
Compare this to ANY Republican. Perhaps you think a President JEB would hesitate for a second to launch a full on invasion of Iran or would give up anything domestically to do so. Or maybe he'll appoint anyone to the left of Roberts or Thomas to the Court. Or that he'll be anything but a hindrance to civil rights or women's rights.
With a Republican, ANY Republican, you get everything you fear from Clinton, and a great big pile of other shit, including the police state, abortion bans, militarism (defined not as using the military, but as worshipping the military), total deregulation and privatization, and a megaphone for the racists who'd elect him.
It's like the difference between a bowl of moldy bread crusts and a bowl of broken glass smeared with bloody shit. Nobody expects you to like the moldy bread, but if you think it's the same thing as the blood and shit-smeared shards of glass the GOP wants you to eat, then I don't know what to say to you.
And discouraging people from voting while the GOP is, *and has been for decades,* actively trying to prevent you and me from voting, something the Dems never do and haven't done since the Dixiecrats all joined the GOP 40 years ago, is particularly special. Perhaps a GOP President will work to restore the voting rights act? Perhaps a President Clinton wouldn't, not even out of cynical self-interest?
Look, I get it. You don't trust the party to fix everything at once and you're aware of powerful forces within the party that resist positive change. Welcome to the Democratic Party. Those forces aren't the only ones in our party, the voting base has influence in opposition to those evildoers at the top, whose only influence is money, not votes, certainly not the party's ideology which is at odds with the money agenda.
On their side, the voting base ARE the evil doers, the votes and ideology are right in lockstep with the money agenda and the party gladly gives them what they want, legitimacy for their bigotry and economic oppression for all the non-rich. This is objectively worse, way worse. How do you not get this?
Well, you got me there. Yes, words have meanings and should be used correctly. My bad.
ReplyDeleteEasy. You just decorate the cake with a large cross on top; when they pick it up tell them they're free to stick candles all over the cross & light them.
ReplyDeletePrinz Erik von Schwarzwasser zu Abu Dhabi is part of that family.
ReplyDeleteThat's it exactly, and, IMHO, that is what the passage from Paul is all about too. Some Corinthian Christians, to parade their more Christian than thou, moral superiority, made a fetish out of NOT buying the meat that came from the animals sacrificed to the Roman (ie "pagan") gods. Paul, at least in this instance, takes the live and let live view, and says that it doesn't matter. Meat is meat, and, given the already established Christian view that the Roman gods were "nothing," the use of that meat in the pagan ceremonies didn't "taint" it.
ReplyDeleteI would also point out that, as I read the epistle, Paul is not really concerned with the pagan temple money making aspect, but is focused on the "are we being involved in something sinful/evil?merely by eating the meat" question. And he answers, quite emphatically, no.
Notice too that Paul, in verse 27, says even if a Christian is invited to a FEAST given by unbelievers, and if he is "disposed" to go, he should go, and eat whatever is put before him. In other words, as I see it, it seems that Paul would not only approve the gay wedding cake sale scenario, but also the gay wedding guest scenario too!
So, the alleged problem of legal, gay marriage and civil rights for GLBT folks mandating the sale of goods and services for such weddings, far from implicating some sort of bright line, no Christians can in any way, even with six degrees of separation, be "tainted" by association with it, situation, calling for, at a minimum, court cases and, at a maximum, Eggs Benedict, is a big nothing. Paul himself gives the bakers, and even would be Christian wedding guests, the go ahead to let it go.
Really, folks already planning an SSM are not "encouraged" to do so merely because a bakery will sell them a cake, and even more so if the law actually compels the bakery to sell them a cake. And even Paul, who is something of an A Hole, and much more into rules and regs than JC himself was, does not say that Christians have to do backflips to avoid any behavior, no matter how ordinary and neutral seeming, to avoid associating with non Christian practices.
And so, to pretend the gay wedding cases actually implicate anything contrary to Christianity is to preen, to morally posture, just like those back in the day Corinthians with their alleged qualms about the meat from the pagan ceremonies.
AIUI, the melody was stolen from a then-popular English pub song. Clearly, it was never intended to be sung while sober.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, do you have to starve and die to keep from being implicated in the Nazi atrocities through taxation?
ReplyDeleteI love the not-so-subtle dig at taxation, as though the Nazis didn't fund their conquests by seizing gold reserves, artworks et cetera.