Earlier this week the north Idaho citizens of Kootenai County watched with amusement the backpedaling and tap dancing among the Coeur d’Alene City Council, the Task Force on Human Relations, and their teams of lawyers and “constitutional experts” to try to figure out how to get out of the corner in which they painted themselves.
They quickly realized their folly of telling a husband and wife pastor team that they would not be exempt from the city’s prized ‘public accommodation’ ordinance, and thereby faced potential criminal charges, fines, and jail if they refused to conduct a homosexual ‘wedding’ ceremony. The whole ordeal turned out to be a lose/lose situation for all the anti-Christian forces.
They apparently forgot momentarily that they are smack dab in the middle of Christian patriot territory. They also quickly realized they had chosen the wrong victims for their militant minority homosexual offensive. Conservative Christians everywhere rose up and the lawsuit aimed at the city’s unconstitutional ordinance left the city facing the reality that there was no chance of winning this battle. So now, ‘how do we peel all this egg off our faces?’ the city council and their corroborators must have been asking themselves.
In comes the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations to the rescue with their ACLU lawyers and ‘constitutional experts.’ In navigating through the ordinance, the constitution, and all the ‘oops’ moments they had when making public statements, they went to work honing their verbal judo and weasel word skills.
Little did they realize in their letter of findings and recommendations that they in fact confirmed that the ability to choose not to engage in an activity which violates one’s religious beliefs and moral convictions is protected by the constitution:
“It has always been our position that the ordinance would exempt religious institutions recognizing their First Amendment rights…”
Oops! So they agree that exemptions should be made based on “First Amendment rights!” But wait. Their idea is that religious institutions are the ones who have First Amendment rights. How does that make you feel, citizen? Constitutional rights are now only reserved for approved institutions. Not the citizens! Just ask the ‘constitution experts’ from among the advocates of immorality.
So, why can’t citizens be exempt? They answer that question…
“For government to allow such exceptions based on religious grounds, would literally open the door to all forms of discrimination in violation of the U. S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.”
According to their logic, if allowing exceptions based on religious grounds would “literally open the door to all forms of discrimination”, why then would they allow religious institutions an exemption? Is it acceptable that religious institutions can have an open door to all forms of discrimination?
To the left wing spin doctors… Don’t you preach equality? How do you assert that the law is being equally applied when you recognize the God-given, constitutionally protected rights of one group, while denying them to the citizen, for whom the constitution was written to protect? Don’t you claim that a citizen shouldn’t have less rights because of “who they are?”
I submit that your refusal to target clergy and ‘religious institutions’ is only a temporary recess in your unjust pursuit of ‘equality’.
Maybe you’re counting on Christian patriots to be just as stupid as you think we are — and as stupid as your reasoning. You counted wrong, you brood of vipers!
Gee, to me, every Christian is a religious institution – an actual house of God, unto him/herself.
The First Amendment is not an instruction for government to define religion. Government does not have the authority to tell us what is / is not the basis, nor the context of our religious beliefs.