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No, this isn't a "way out" for Christians in the wedding business

I've seen at least two recent articles arguing that there is a "way out" for Christians in the wedding business. Here is one and here is the other. The basic idea goes something like this: If you are a florist, a baker, or a photographer, willingly agree to celebrate homosexual "weddings," but make a big deal of the fact that you are going to donate the money to marriage defense groups of some kind or other.

Bruce Takawani, perhaps trying to be humorous (but he may be seriously suggesting it), has the following "branding" idea:

There are plenty of other Bible verses to put on your service van, as well, such as Romans 1:26-28, or Leviticus 20:13.

He continues,

Ideally, you’ll come up with some combination of overt biblical references that will both express your genuine religious convictions and repel those who expect you to bend to their will simply because they exist—while making it clear that you follow all applicable laws and regulations on the diversity of customers you are obligated to serve.

Would any gay couple actually hire you to show up in your Bible-thumping van? They could, and you’d have them sign an agreement that makes it clear that for marketing purposes you always wear a T-shirt with your business name and favorite Bible verse and distribute flyers under the windshield wipers of wedding guests—flyers that both summarize your services and outline your traditional-marriage beliefs.

Brent Bozell is pretty clearly serious and has similar ideas:

Tell them that the food and services will be just fine. "And then inform them that all of the money that they pay for the services will be donated to a traditional pro-family lobby. [snip] If they're appalled, then say, "Oh, you would be offended by that? I'm so sorry. You approached us because we are Christians. Right? We are happy to provide services for you and we are grateful that you chose to come to our Christian catering business. We just want to be of help.

"Then tell them that you will take out an ad in the paper to let everyone know what you did with their money, thanking them by name for their business so that you could make the contribution."

Bozell is borrowing his ideas from blogger Fr. Zuhlsdorf,

Now, I know that all of this sounds clever, even brilliant. But I would like to beg people to stop promoting these "solutions." The reasons against them are twofold--one practical and one moral.

First, this is really, really, really bad legal advice. Bozell ends chirpily:

No one is refused service or suffers "discrimination" in this scenario, and the caterer's conscience is intact. Leftist lawyers and judges don't get to levy fines. But if gay couples want to force their lifestyle on others, it naturally follows that religious believers should push their beliefs more elaborately as well.

I'll get back to the conscience bit in a moment, but first, about the happy prediction that "leftist lawyers and judges don't get to levy fines."

I really have to wonder what world the people who give this advice have been living in for the past several decades that they really think this is a practical solution. Let me ask you, legally: What would happen if an interracial couple asked a florist to do their wedding, and the florist made a huge song and dance about how he belongs to the local neo-Nazi club, would show up with racist slogans all over his van, and would donate any money made from the wedding to the local White Supremacist club?

Yeah, that. He would have the pants sued off him for creating a hostile public accommodations environment, that's what! This would be regarded as no different from illegal signal-sending in housing advertisements, about which we have reams and reams of advice. See here, for example.

We need to realize that non-discrimination law was not created yesterday. It does not have loopholes. It has been around for decades, and all the loopholes have been closed. The anti-discrimination bureaucrats, lawmakers, judges, and lawyers have already thought of everything along these lines that you might think of to do to try to "get around" non-discrimination law, and guess what? That's all illegal, too. That's why Cracker Barrel had to pay a big settlement because black people claimed that they had to wait longer to be served than white people!

The bottom line is that if you do something that even accidentally makes a "protected status" group feel uncomfortable, you're liable to be charged with discrimination. All the more so, if you do things that are blatantly, evidently, obviously designed to deter members of a protected status group from seeking your services or to make them feel uncomfortable when using your services, you will definitely be subject to a discrimination suit.

So let's not fool ourselves.

Second, about that conscience matter. I don't know if those making these suggestions think that what we Christians should object to is taking money for celebrating sodomite relationships, but it was never about the money! It was about celebrating the sodomite relationship. Please note: It would be just as wrong to celebrate a sodomite relationship for a family member for free as to do it as a business. So how in the world does donating the money to a good cause make it all okay?

The point is that each of these actions is a type of speech act. It is a form of endorsement of the relationship. Think of a photographer: Is it okay for a photographer to take glamorous, beautiful photos making it look sweet for two men to be kissing each other at the altar so long as he gives the money to a pro-family organization? You can't pay off your conscience like that! The photos are still celebrating the relationship. What you do with the money is the least of your problems.

Now, we can discuss exactly what constitutes this type of speech-act. I'm inclined to say that if you sell a man a sheet cake (which no one would use for a wedding anyway), and he goes away and serves it at his homosexual "wedding," you haven't endorsed anything. And the homosexual lobbyists (and some annoyingly foolish Christians) sometimes talk like this is the scenario: "Christians are trying to control what other people do with their products." Puh-lease. No, we aren't. We're talking about that point of intersection where the services provided are overtly a part of the celebration of the event. The service provider is supposed to consult, even sometimes be present for the event, provide symbolic objects (like a wedding cake, maybe even with two men or two women on top), speak in an upbeat and positive fashion about the event, help in his own sphere in the planning of the event to make sure that it goes well, or even (as in the case of a photogrpher) use his creative, artistic talents to memorialize and celebrate the event. This is why there is a problem. This is why people have a conscience problem with these acts. It almost passes my understanding how intelligent and even sometimes conservative people could even think for a moment that the problem would go away if the money were "purged" by being given to a pro-marriage group. If you just participated in normalizing and celebrating homosexual "marriage," your conscience should be aching even if you donated ten times as much as your profits to a pro-marriage group.

So, this isn't a way out.

I myself am inclined to think that practically speaking there is no way out and that Christians and other moral traditionalists are going to have to stop operating wedding services for money. As long as you are a "public accommodation," you will fall under non-discrimination laws. If an entire photography or florist business could be operated as an arm of an explicitly religious organization (similar to a gift shop that is run by a religious organization), that it could probably be exempt under any religious exemption that applies. But it is doubtful that any large number of florists, bakers, and photographers could be sustained in that fashion. Alternatively, it is possible that, in venues with non-discrimination laws that include sexual orientation, such service providers could legally raise their prices for other services and offer actual wedding services only for free in a "discriminatory" fashion, charging only for actual materials. Then they could honestly tell inquirers that as a business they do not "do weddings."

Another suggestion I have seen is for a wedding service provider to make it a policy to do all weddings only through churches that have "registered" with him to obtain wedding services for their members. Then the "discrimination" would be carried out at the level of "registering" religious organizations. However, this would almost certainly be deemed discrimination on the basis of religion and illegal on that basis. (Now you can be sued by atheists as well as by homosexuals.) Moreover, if a church's position on homosexual "marriage" were included in the criteria for the church's "registering" with the photographer or baker, and if a homosexual couple were turned away because they did not belong to a registered church, the provider would almost certainly also be held to have discriminated against them on the basis of sexual orientation.

So the deck is stacked and the game is rigged. Unless widespread religious exemptions are allowed, Christians are not going to be able to continue participating in these businesses. I say "widespread," because a tenuous religious exemption which, to obtain, requires a torturous court proceeding with the issue very much in doubt is of scarcely any practical value. This is why, though I have been appalled at the reaction to the attempt to pass a meaningful RFRA in Indiana, and sickened by the pusillanimity of Republican lawmakers who have tried to withdraw its protections (such as they are) from Christians in precisely this position, I have been unable to summon much enthusiasm for an RFRA as a real, practical solution. That is not to mention the fact that non-religious people might also have entirely legitimate objections to celebrating homosexual "marriages."

It is a bitter pill to swallow that these wicked and unjust laws have this effect of driving people of conscience further out of the public square. I will be happy to admit that I have been wrong if we get at some point a solid and binding precedent for an exemption, which will firmly deter future attempted prosecutions, protecting businessmen on conscientious or religious grounds.

But it does no good to make up cutesy ideas that supposedly show that, if we are only clever enough, we can out-fox the tolerance bullies. Such ideas will only cause people to make legal mistakes and, if their bluff is called and the services demanded nonetheless, violate their consciences after all.

Comments (41)

It'd probably also get them sued for disrupting the event and any efforts to conspicuously taint the quality of the contracted service would probably get you sued as well. If you are going to go the passive aggressive route, your best bet would be to do it pro bono and then screw it all up really badly so that there would be no financial loss to the receiving parties. That would probably hamper the plaintiff by giving them no loss to claim and they couldn't claim that your business was unwilling to perform the service since you did show up and do something.

You would almost certainly still be sued for emotional pain and suffering. I'm planning to post about the CO case where an administrative law judge has just ruled a $135K fine for a bakery, largely personal damages on the grounds of how much alleged emotional and even physical (!) suffering the lesbians went through because their feelings were hurt by being refused a cake. All the more so if you did a bad job at a "wedding" would you be liable for emotional pain.

Once the Supreme Court makes same-sex psuedo-marriage the law of the land, won't the next step be lawsuits against all Churches which refuse to perform same-sex marriages?

I think there may be lawsuits *if* the church rents out its building to non-members. All churches need to be making explicit, written policies right now on that subject to make it clear that they are not offering their buildings "to the general public" as wedding venues. If a church is alert and gets on the ball, that should be easy to take care of.

The next step after that may be withdrawing tax-exempt status for the churches if they don't "get with the program."

In other words, I see the attacks upon churches per se as taking these indirect forms.

In contrast, if the church runs a school or any other service, the attacks will be more direct and area already beginning. In Washington, D.C., the city council has just passed a law removing religious protections for church-run private schools if they discriminate even in their hiring. This _should_ be struck down under court challenge, based upon the Hosanna Tabor precedent, but I'm not laying absolute bets on that.

If you sell services, you should be handling it via written contract. I wonder what would happen if you put in there that the buyer of the service agrees to follow the artistic vision of the baker, photographer, etc. and that any overt attempts to dictate to the contrary shall be grounds for termination of the contract.

**Meaning you could tell the lesbians that you put toppers on cakes. It's standard and non-negotiable and oh, by the way, we only do male-female of your choice of race because we do not find any other method of topping the cake to be tasteful.

I think that would not be allowed to fly because of the whole idea of trying to make certain customers uncomfortable with your services. At this point the courts are rejecting wholesale the idea that "artistic vision" even _applies_ in these cases and are insisting that the quality and nature of the service needs to be such as to celebrate the event for everyone. The judge's opinion in the photography case in New Mexico is being cited to this effect almost as if it were a precedent even in venues for which it is not in any sense a precedent!

A baker probably could get away with not putting any figures on the top of any cakes, but I doubt he could get away with putting male-female figures on the top of a homosexual "wedding" cake. I myself would still have a problem with making what is explicitly a wedding cake, even sans figures, for a homosexual "wedding," because it's a distinctive type of cake and hence symbolic. A totally generic type of cake which the customer walks away with is a different matter.

As for a photographer, presumably the "artistic vision" would be to make this relationship look creepy and perverted, and that would of course be deemed as giving inferior service on the basis of sexual orientation.

As for florists, I can't even see how it would apply. There isn't really a way for a florist to have an "I disapprove of this" artistic vision conveyed _in_ the flower-providing service itself. You come and help everybody dress up and pin on their corsages and what-not, you consult on making the venue pretty, etc., or you don't. The same problem applies for someone who provides wedding clothes or does wedding planning or plays wedding music. You have to make this generally as high quality as you can and help the people to make their day go well in your sphere.

All churches need to be making explicit, written policies right now on that subject...

Right. For awhile I've been warning that churches need to have a plan in place should a hostile secular culture decide to revoke tax exemptions. Preferably before it happens. Just add same-sex marriage to the "In case of Babylon" emergency procedures.

This article and the last make me think the blog editor needs a sense-of-humor transplant.

This is why Christians should have mobilized in force to prevent the passing of bills like the US Civil Rights Act (1964), the UK Race Relations Acts (1965, 1968) and the Canadian Human Rights Act (1977), instead of throwing the "racists" under the bus, making impious apologies for the sins of their ancestors, and basically treating Martin Luther King Jr. as if he were the fourth member of the Trinity. It is one thing for a government to say that it will not discriminate between those it governs on the grounds of race, sex, or what have you, in the administration of justice or the performance of any of its other tasks. It is quite another for it to pass a law telling people they cannot discriminate among themselves. Such a law will always end up being used against Christians and anyone else who distinguishes, i.e. discriminates, between good and evil.

Yeah, Steve P., I guess we should just be yucking it up while our fellow moral traditionalists are being hunted down systematically and fined into poverty. Gotta get the old sense of humor fired up and find a funny spin to put on that one.

Spare us the pointless snark.

Gerry Neal, what has happened here is indeed a cautionary tale in the dangers of giving the government the power to penalize motives and thoughts and to force association among private parties. This is not to say that racism is not a real thing and was not a real evil. It is, however, to say that the power conferred on the government by anti-discrimination laws created a seismic shift in American culture and has made people much, much more vulnerable to later absurdities and horrors such as those we now see. All one has to say is the magic word "discrimination" and immediately everyone is agin' it.

As I have said often, in terms of the good of the republic, I myself think it would have been better if no non-discrimination laws for private businesses had been passed at any level--neither state nor federal. On the other hand, since the laws are here to stay now, I do not at all blame lawyers now who use, e.g., laws against discrimination on the basis of religion as some sort of attempt to prevent the worst of both worlds--we cannot discriminate against the sodomites and other leftists, but they can hound all the Christians out of their jobs.

This is not to say that racism is not a real thing and was not a real evil.

Says, the black mayor of Baltimore:

“It’s a very delicate balancing act, because while we try to make sure that they were protected from the cars and other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well,” she said.

“And we worked very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to de-escalate.”

The average Klansmen couldn't make this crap up.

I think there may be lawsuits *if* the church rents out its building to non-members. All churches need to be making explicit, written policies right now on that subject to make it clear that they are not offering their buildings "to the general public" as wedding venues. If a church is alert and gets on the ball, that should be easy to take care of.

The next step after that may be withdrawing tax-exempt status for the churches if they don't "get with the program."

It looks like that in Idaho at least, they want to skip a few steps. Coeur d‘Alene city officials declare that gays must be married or else.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/20/idaho-citys-ordinance-tells-pastors-to-marry-gays-/

Andrew, actually, that is an out-dated story that for some reason just did the rounds again on Facebook. I reported on that story when it happened, and the city has since backed down. In any event, the headline is a little confusing, because they were targeting a particular couple that was offering marriages for a fee as a business, not pastors generally. Not that that made it okay, which is why I targeted it as a very alarming development when it first came up. That's why it's a good thing that the city backed down once the couple registered their religious marriage service as a religious organization.

If a country is to be so illogical as to commit to unnatural marriages then what enormity it could not commit? How can reason be expected from madmen?

http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/harass/pubaccom.htm
"A Wisconsin administrative agency has concluded that an overheard (though loud) discussion that used the word "nigger" created an illegal hostile public accommodations environment for black patrons, even though the statements weren't said to or about the patrons."

This is why I am concerned that SOGI anti-discrimination laws may possibly turn out to be used to discriminate against traditional Christians and anyone else who believes that marriage involves a man and woman, children are best off if they can be raised by their own, loving mother and father, and/or that homosexuality is not something to be celebrated in the work place and elsewhere. Based on the claims that these views are the moral equivalent of racism and are based on nothing but hate and bigotry, to express them or to be known to hold them could be found as creating a hostile environment.

On the bright side, there is some good news in these types of cases.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/417540/freedom-conscience-wins-round-david-french

"This Court does not fault the Commission in its interest in insuring citizens have equal access to services, but that is not what this case is all about. There is no evidence in this record that HOO or its owners refused to print t-shirts in question based on the sexual orientation of GLSO [the gay pride organization] or its members or its representatives that contacted HOO. Rather, it is clear beyond dispute that HOO and its owners declined to print the t-shirts in question because of the MESSAGE advocating sexual activity outside of a marriage between one man and one woman. The well established Constitutional rights of HOO and its owners on this issue is well settled and requires action by this Court. [Emphasis in original.]"

A business sued for not printing t-shirts by homosexual activists has won a round in court. Just maybe some judge will look to this case the next time a wedding vendor is sued. That is if they do not end up losing on the inevitable.

I am afraid that Lydia is mostly right about this: the gays are thoroughly in the drivers seat, and even where so much as decency and reason might plausibly present a basis for people being able to be free to just not go along, the gay agenda will attempt to beat that decency and reason into the ground and punish normal people for not going along. And any true understanding of rule of law will be laughed aside, generally.

Which doesn't mean we shouldn't fight anyway. And it doesn't mean we shouldn't ATTEMPT to resist, and attempt to come up with strategies that might work even if we don't have confidence in them. God can work strange things with even unlikely tools, so we should keep on trying. Yes, people should try strategies that theoretically could be used as arguments in their favor in court, they should try a million different things and see what comes of it. They should even try just basic polite directness once in a while: "I am curious, sir and sir. Since you know I am an outspoken Christian, is your attempt to get me to make a wedding cake for you really an attempt to set me up for a law suit? Are you intentionally targeting my business so you can 'get me' for not being pro-gay?"

But none of that justifies strategies that are in themselves immoral. And so you have to ask yourself "is doing this formal cooperation with evil, does this sort of action itself buy into the moral character of the wedding I object to?" And it is unfortunate, but so many people have no clue how to go about that inquiry. We shouldn't be too, too hard on people who attempt to ask the right questions and go off the rails without noticing. Yes, we should correct them, but not berate them.

My preference, for a photographer, is to inform them up front "I tried to do a shoot for a couple of guys, once, but the results were horrible. I was gagging and getting ill when they kissed, so my shots were all off. It wasn't pretty. I am afraid I cannot reasonably predict professional results for you, so in professional respect for your rights to have good photography I am forced to decline your business." That doesn't help the baker and florist.

My preference, for a photographer, is to inform them up front "I tried to do a shoot for a couple of guys, once, but the results were horrible. I was gagging and getting ill when they kissed, so my shots were all off. It wasn't pretty. I am afraid I cannot reasonably predict professional results for you, so in professional respect for your rights to have good photography I am forced to decline your business."

It's not a _wrong_ thing to say (if true, or some true variant), but it will not work legally for the same reason that it wouldn't in the case of an interracial marriage. It will be regarded as creating a hostile public accommodations environment and attempting to deter protected status customers from using your services. (Which is pretty accurate. That is exactly what it is.) This is itself, on current precedents concerning race, considered a form of discrimination. So the photographer would almost certainly be sued in that case as well.

As I have said often, in terms of the good of the republic, I myself think it would have been better if no non-discrimination laws for private businesses had been passed at any level--neither state nor federal. On the other hand, since the laws are here to stay now, I do not at all blame lawyers now who use, e.g., laws against discrimination on the basis of religion as some sort of attempt to prevent the worst of both worlds--we cannot discriminate against the sodomites and other leftists, but they can hound all the Christians out of their jobs.

Obviously, with antidiscrimination laws on the books, lawyers who are "on our side" need to attempt to use the laws in this way. The problem is that to do so they have to operate as if one set of assumptions about these laws is true, when everybody else operates on a different set of assumptions. Lawyers, trying to protect Christians with laws against discrimination on the basis of religion, assume that anti-discrimination laws are based on some abstract, universal, neutral principle - "thou shalt not discriminate" - that is to be applied across the board and evenly. Meanwhile, those using the laws to persecute Christians operate under the assumption, shared by most government agencies charged with investigating and prosecuting discrimination cases and most judges appointed to hear these cases, that these laws are an instrument of revolution, to tear down "white privilege", "patriarchy", "heteronormality", "Christianity", in which case it would defeat the purpose entirely if the laws were applied evenly and across the board.

Which, I wonder, would be more the approach most likely to succeed? Convincing liberal judges and equality commissions to change their way of thinking or going after the laws themselves as unreasonably abridging basic freedoms such as the freedom of association?

You may have trouble finding said lawyers. Can't find it, but some allege it goes even farther than that NY Times link says because many smaller firms are afraid of losing business.

Gerry, you've gotten to the root of it my friend. The dominant premise of modern Western moral compass is a Marxist form of egalitarianism, until we attack this foundation little ground will be made. What's amazing is how little sympathy the Marxist (and by that I mean those who, often unwittingly, accept Marxist presuppositions regarding antidiscrimination even though they otherwise may be for economic freedom) has for the Christian position. To the Marxist this isn't a gray area of competing rights between freedom of conscious and "right" of nondiscrimination, to them the latter is clearly and intuitively the only moral position to take.

The way to attack this, however, isn't to defend discrimination per se. Politically I'm 100% for the repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as I see it to be an attack on our liberties based on the false god of egalite. I'm as pro-discrimination as they come. But in general, and certainly in a time of persecution, the defense the Christian should be offering is an explicit appeal to God's moral law and natural order. When confronted with a judicial ruling or tyrannical city council attempting to coerce acceptance of homosexuality, the Christian should defiantly declare that he fears God more than the state. They can't throw us in jail yet, fines can be paid or appealed, and businesses can be reopened or reorganized. Unjust laws do not have to be followed, so we shouldn't be following them or acting like they're impossible to escape from.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."


They can't throw us in jail yet, fines can be paid or appealed, and businesses can be reopened or reorganized.

The fines can be paid if and only if you have the money. If you refuse, of course, you certainly _can_ be thrown into jail. In some cases we are talking about total individual ruin. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that we should therefore give in to their demands, but let's look straight in the eye what we are talking about. A couple in Colorado has just had a $135K fine ruled against them, unless some other bureaucrat decides not to levy it. Barronnelle Stutzmann stands to be fined the entirety of her _opponents'_ legal bills if she ultimately loses her appeals in Washington State. We are talking about complete personal ruin for individuals and families, with nothing left with which to reopen or reorganize a business.

It would help if we could get pastors to start preaching that the police and prosecutors who are Christians have a duty to undermine the enforcement of these laws. Prof Bainbridge has a good blog post on a Christian professor who is hiding from his colleagues, even with tenure, because he's terrified of having to stand up for himself. I like Bainbridge's attitude, he cites Polycarp and various other martyrs as an example and basically says if these men would die for the gospel, then what excuse do you have to back down to mere bullies.

Which doesn't mean we shouldn't fight anyway.

But only metaphorically. All actual fights that offend against the American State are intrinsically immoral.

I would like to see someone refuse to pay the fines then (yes, yes, easy for me to say). I have difficulty imagining jail would be in the cards, especially if an organization like Fox News got involved. Can you imagine what a barrage of attention over a woman in her 70s serving jail time for refusing to bake a cake would do? The image of people protesting outside the courthouse while she is taken in in handcuffs? Of course this depends on Fox News running with the story, but I'm sure it'd get some play from the likes of Sean Hannity. But it takes someone to first stand up and say "no." Momentum from the Tea Party protests at the beginning of Obama's first term led to a conservative-led narrative driven primarily by Fox News regarding the size and scope of federal spending which led to the retaking of the House by Republicans in 2010 (a lot of good that did us, but I digress). So Fox has the power to push a story.

If people can be stirred to sympathize with the violent protestors in Ferguson and now Baltimore over the deaths of less-than-reputable felonious thuggish black men, they can be stirred to sympathize with 70 year old white grandmother who makes floral arrangements for a living.

Can you imagine what a barrage of attention over a woman in her 70s serving jail time for refusing to bake a cake would do?

Good point. I have suggested the same thing: not just anyone, but someone who is going to get a lot of sympathy for herself.

I don't know how it works with contempt of court. If it were a felony or misdemeanor, nobody would get more than probation for a first offense like this. If the court is telling you "pay a fine" and you don't, though, I suspect that the judge is going to get irritated and may feel like jail is the only option. Often jail for contempt of court runs just as long as you refuse to comply, so it could end up a life sentence, though. Good fodder for Fox.

I would like to see someone refuse to pay the fines then (yes, yes, easy for me to say). I have difficulty imagining jail would be in the cards, especially if an organization like Fox News got involved. Can you imagine what a barrage of attention over a woman in her 70s serving jail time for refusing to bake a cake would do?

It would garner sympathy from some, and she would still be in jail. And she would still owe the fines. And when she died, the fines would be taken out of/erase her estate.

Bedarz, if you start advocating literal sedition and armed rebellion on this comments thread, I will delete your comments. This is your only warning. I've mentioned before recently that I don't appreciate the fact that we occasionally attract true nutcases "from the right." I've suspected for a while that you are one such, and I'm just waiting for an opportunity to make you unwelcome if you start displaying actual craziness.

Your own comments are technically sedition, as they are an incitement to rebellion against the civil authority. Sedition can be morally justifiable, though never legal. Armed rebellion may not be justified in this case, but there is nothing intrinsically nutty about armed rebellion against abusive government.

In fact, I'd hazard a guess that if conservatives took to the streets like Pakistani Rage Boy over gay marriage the local civil authorities would be crapping themselves and backpedaling as fast their legs could move to undo those things. Call out the military? Shoot, much of the military would be on the same side as the people on the street and the authorities know that.

Bag it, Mike. You're often a very good commentator and have a long history here at W4, and neither of those applies to BI, but I can't have a double standard on this one.

Unless you deleted a comment here that goes much further than the other ones, I don't see anything BI said that crosses the line. In fact, the ones here from BI seem tamer than most of the suggested civil disobedience in terms of legality. Perhaps I missed something, but I don't see it.

Mike, what BI did was basically taunt conservatives for failing to publish the kind of seditious fulminations he thinks ought to be published; or even for failing to emulate Baltimore hoodlums and burn down a CVS when the Supreme Court rules against us. This is not commentary, it's heckling. So yes, you missed something.

I saw only two comments, one of which was mocking the conservative tendency to find any actual fighting back to be "intrinsically immoral." So unless either a comment was deleted or you are a long distance mind reader, I think you have just shoved a lot of words into BI's mouth.

Lydia,

Please forgive me; I was vague. I did not mean to tell you you ought to laugh about serious things. I meant that you seemed to be, in this article and the last, to be treating seriously things that are not intended seriously. For example, people who say "bromance" are not seriously promoting a new word, they are trying to be witty. The problem is not that they are debasing the language, the problem is that the joke is stale and not funny anymore. Another example is the "suggestion" that Fr. Z made. He was serious and he had a serious point, but he did not literally mean that he'd found a "way out" for people in the wedding business or that he thought people ought to do what he suggested. And it must have been funny in some sense because I laughed out loud when I read his blog article, and although I am somewhat eccentric, if I laughed it must be funny to others as well. It also seems hard for me to think that he did not at least smile when he wrote it. Perhaps it's what one might call "grim" humor.

It's similar to one of the things that is wrong with contemporary liberalism: "How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? That's not funny."

I know someone who told that joke to a feminist, and she very seriously replied "That's not funny!" Humor is one of the enemies of contemporary liberalism, because humor is human and contemporary liberalism is ultimately an enemy of humanity. We ought not be like them and throw a wet blanket on discourse by treating things as serious that aren't meant to be serious.

Steve, in all honesty, I think you are incorrect if you do not think that some people really do believe that they could try this passive-aggressive approach as a "way out" for Christian businessmen in the wedding business. Fr. Z. might have been trying to be funny, but Brent Bozell is, I believe, really making it as a suggestion.

As for the words, I've had people defend the on-going use of the words. Even a joke can, in fact, debase the language if it is a misguided word usage. I've heard people _use_ the words in various contexts, so...that's a word usage. We can debate that in the other thread if you want to press a distinction between a joke and a usage there, though.

Steve P., another point: Strip away all the over-the-top stuff about showing up in your funny van and so forth and just go to the idea of advertising that you will donate the money to a pro-marriage group. I *have definitely* seen that promoted as a *serious* way out for conservative businessmen. If you haven't, you haven't, but there are indeed people out there who actually think that would be a way to stay in the wedding businesses and preserve their conscience.

I would like to see someone refuse to pay the fines then (yes, yes, easy for me to say). I have difficulty imagining jail would be in the cards, especially if an organization like Fox News got involved. Can you imagine what a barrage of attention over a woman in her 70s serving jail time for refusing to bake a cake would do? The image of people protesting outside the courthouse while she is taken in in handcuffs? Of course this depends on Fox News running with the story, but I'm sure it'd get some play from the likes of Sean Hannity. But it takes someone to first stand up and say "no."

It appears that jailtime is exactly what the other side is hoping those on our side will receive. They are sabotaging fundraising efforts. http://dailysignal.com/2015/04/27/after-bakers-fundraising-campaign-shut-down-florist-who-rejected-same-sex-wedding-faces-same-fate/

Maybe Lydia is right: "So the deck is stacked and the game is rigged. Unless widespread religious exemptions are allowed, Christians are not going to be able to continue participating in these businesses." Maybe we will just have to call on family and friends to bake the cakes and take the pictures as family/community functions, as things we do for one another rather than a paid service. It is unfortunate that people who hope for career opportunities here will then have to take another way.

John has a good point. Our cake was made by a woman in our church who does it as a side business. A lot of photographers won't release the copyright to the photos without an extra fee, so that has to be figured into the cost there. A bunch of relatives with good cameras will probably get you good enough results for a substantial savings.

It's also time for churches to stop renting out their buildings for marriages that don't involve their members or members' Christian relatives. A church that lets its building be used for non-Christian marriages is already playing with fire on a spiritual level, now we have a legal angle to that as well.

Lydia, I wish I had your mind. I am not good at debate for the same reasons I am not good at chess... can't think far enough ahead or see the opponents' stategies. My pastor's wife has confessed her terror at the prospect of her husband being jailed for hate speech simply by preaching the Word of God without without reservation. Is a day coming when scriptures, in part or in whole, are outlawed? The name Orwell comes to mind.

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