Word for Word
by Rev. Ron Pederson
About two weeks ago the Supreme Court ruled that same sex marriages are legal in all 50 states. This has raised some concerns for many Christians, especially for Christian-owned businesses that sell services such as wedding cakes, photography, etc. Will they be breaking the law and be fined if they do not perform their services at gay weddings, even when it goes against their conscience? These matters address a very practical part of the lives of many Christian merchants who want to be faithful to their Lord in all aspects of their lives.
I think a pastor friend of mine, Rev. David Jay Webber, has some helpful insights regarding this dilemma. In a recent online post that he has granted permission for reprinting here, he writes:
“It has become an established jurisprudential principle in the U.S. that artistic expression is speech, protected by the first amendment. And this would involve things like decorating a venue for a wedding reception, setting up the cake and the cake table, photographing the event, etc. Speech more literally would also involve things such as putting an inscription on a cake, making a sign, printing an inscription on napkins or party favors, and so forth.
“Speech is not involved in things like selling someone food or paper products in a store, or even dropping off food at the venue of a reception. But setting up displays of food, or anything else that requires you to insert yourself into the event, is artistic expression, and is protected speech.
“I’ve thought for a while that the act of selling a cake to a gay couple for their wedding perhaps should not be seen as violating the conscience of a Christian baker. What about the store that sells to such a couple the flatware and napkins for their reception?...
“The issue, I think, is not the act of commerce that is involved in selling a gay couple a cake as such, or forks and spoons, or whatever objects or foodstuffs they want to buy. The issue really should be seen to be the ~speech~ that is involved in the ~inscription~ on the cake, or on a poster that someone might be hired to make. Likewise, the artistic expression of a photographer, who would be hired to photograph the wedding, is a form of protected speech, which should not be coerced if the wedding or the event that he would be artistically recording is an event that violates his beliefs.
“This would also apply to something like a T shirt company that imprints T shirts. Selling a T shirt to someone, in itself, should not be seen as a problem, regardless of when and where the T shirt would be worn. But a T shirt company should not be coerced to put an inscription or an image on a T shirt that violates their conscience or beliefs. The lesbian owners of a T shirt company in New York City were interviewed once, saying that they would not do business with someone who wanted them to put an anti-gay message on a T shirt, and so they sympathized with Christian business owners who did not want to be involved in setting forth a message - on a cake or on a T shirt - with which they disagreed. So, a Christian baker should be expected to sell a cake to anyone who wants to buy a cake. But a Christian baker - or sign-maker, or photographer, or T shirt imprinter - should not be forced to participate in ~speech~ that he or she does not agree with.”
I think Rev Webber’s comments do a great deal to simplify this issue in that they divide a merchant’s (Christian or non-Christian) services into two categories: 1) Sustenance services only and 2) artistic speech services.
As important as our temporal freedoms are, let us not forget the spiritual freedom that Jesus has acquired for us. Our sin enslaves us - enslaves us with a guilty conscience. But Jesus came to free us from our guilt. He became guilty of our sin and took it with Him to the cross where God punished Him instead of us.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). By His life, death and resurrection Jesus has won for you, me and all people the complete and full forgiveness of every, single one of our sins - forgiveness that we can claim as a free gift by faith alone.
Rev. Ron Pederson
King of Grace Lutheran Church ELS
Waukon
