“Right of privacy,” “my body, my choice” and “live and let live,” are trite phrases that are commonly used by those in our society who wish to live a libertine lifestyle free of any moral restraint. Abortion, homosexuality and same-sex “marriage,” they argue, are “rights” with which government should not interfere in a free society. But recent events demonstrate that these so-called proponents of free choice want not only to be free to live an immoral lifestyle, they also want to force everyone else to accept their abnormal behavior or face serious consequences. And they will not hesitate to use the force of government to compel others to sacrifice their religious convictions so that society will only accept their warped beliefs as legitimate.
Consider the fact that late last month, after the California Supreme Court had just ruled that same-sex couples should have the right to “marry,” that same court heard oral arguments in a case in which a lesbian couple had sued two doctors for refusing to artificially inseminate one of the women so that they could have a child together. The doctors had refused because of their Christian beliefs, but attorneys for the two women argued that such a refusal violated the California Civil Rights Act because it prohibits businesses from discriminating against people based on their “sexual orientation.”
Justices of the California Supreme Court apparently were not interested in the religious beliefs of the doctors. Justice Coral Corrigan condescendingly asked one of the attorneys for the doctors: “What about the question, if you can’t provide this kind of service, then don’t go into this kind of practice.” When doctors or anyone else in this country are forced to choose between their religious convictions and their livelihood, we no longer live in a free society.
Consequences flowing from the California same-sex “marriage” decision provide another example of disapproval for religious freedom. When Clerk Greg Smith of the San Diego County Assessor and Recorder’s Office publicly stated that his office would not force its employees to perform same-sex “marriages” if such employees have serious moral or religious objections to them, those who favored same-sex “marriage” were “outraged.”
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom blustered, “This is a civil marriage that civil servants have a responsibility to provide, so for civil servants on religious grounds to start passing judgments, they, I think, are breaking the core tenet of what civil service is all about.” Newsom is, of course, the same mayor who, based on his own personal beliefs, openly defied the law in California regarding marriage in 2004 and issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Now he audaciously suggests that if county clerks do not want to perform “marriages” between persons of the same sex, then they “should think twice about why [they] got the job in the first place and maybe [they] should get a new job.”
In the states of Illinois and Washington, pharmacists have had to deal with attempts by those state governments to remove them from their jobs because of their religious beliefs. Two years ago, the Illinois state pharmacy board passed a rule that requires all pharmacists in that state to fill prescriptions for “emergency contraception” medication, i.e. abortion pills, even when doing so violates their religious beliefs. Failure to comply would result in a suspension of a pharmacist’s license. Washington’s pharmacy board issued a similar rule last year. But such compulsion will not stop with a few states. Each of the past three years, Democrats in Congress have introduced a bill to implement this proposal throughout the country.
This ominous iceberg that threatens to sink religious convictions in the workplace stretches across the labor spectrum from specialized fields in medicine to common trades. Indeed, it was just a couple of months ago that I related in this space the situation of photographer Elaine Huguenin, who was fined by the New Mexico Human Rights Commission for refusing to photograph a lesbian “commitment ceremony,” and was ordered not to discriminate against homosexuals in the future despite her Christian beliefs. In the future, the same kind of involuntary servitude will be employed against retail, restaurant and hotel owners, teachers, attorneys and even pastors who decline to offer their services in furtherance of immoral behavior.
In each of the above examples, alternatives are available to those who wish to practice their immoral beliefs: the lesbian couple readily found a doctor to perform artificial insemination; homosexual couples will have no problem getting “married” in San Francisco or San Diego under the unconscionable California Supreme Court edict; the prevalence of pharmacies regrettably makes it easy to locate a pharmacist who will fill a prescription for abortion pills in states like Washington and Illinois; and the lesbian “couple” in New Mexico did not bother to find another photographer, electing instead to file a complaint against Elaine Huguenin. For those who love immorality, it has never been about “freedom of choice” or equal treatment; they want to force others to give up their religious convictions upon demand, and they are quick to employ the heavy hand of government to get their way. Unless such tyranny is stopped in its tracks, your beliefs and your job could be next.
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WND Staff