Quote for the day

The rapid realignment of public and judicial opinion over the last decade toward gay rights has embroiled the Christian right in an existential crisis. That’s the way they see it, at least, which is why they’re framing the advance of gay rights in America as an assault on “religious freedom” generally, and Christianity specifically. It’s a bogus argument — the religious freedoms of Christian conservatives are not and never have been dependent upon the denial of rights to gay people — but the cause is being championed by conservatives in state governments who have moved to pass laws protecting discrimination against gays as an expression of “religious freedom.”

Simon Maloy

“But-but-but — what if I’m asked to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding? Isn’t that an infringement of my religious freedom?”

No, it is not. A bakery or flower shop is not a religious ministry; they are for-profit commercial enterprises, which do business at public sufferance — and the public has the right to demand civil behavior in public spaces.

I am shocked, every day, by the things Americans don’t know about their own country, its history and its laws — and in the case of the evangelical Right, about their own religion. These are the lunch-counter cases, again, which were argued half a century ago on the exact same grounds. The ‘religious freedom’ yahoos are wrong on homosexuality, wrong on the law, and wrong morally; they are not part of the decent, educated world.

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