Striking the Root of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

Column by Robert L. Johnson.

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Today (December 5, 2017) the US Supreme Court heard arguments in the Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case. The legal issue in question is: Does a business owner have the legal right to refuse business from certain people for certain events. In this case a bakery owner, Jack Phillips, refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, David Mullins and Charlie Craig. Phillips claims the state of Colorado does not have the right to force him to bake a cake for Mullins and Craig. He said that doing so would be forcing him to violate his relationship with God.

The root of the problem that has caused this case to arise is not politics or government, but religion. Why does Phillips believe that baking a wedding cake for gay people would cause him to violate his relationship with God? The answer is because Phillips is a Bible-believing Christian who believes the Christian Bible is the Word of God. Any objective look at the Christian Bible (the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament) makes it evident that whoever wrote it hated gay people, especially gay men. It stands to reason that any person who believes the Bible is the Word of God would believe that God hates gay people and if they want to please God, they must hate, and at a minimum, shun gay people.

Leviticus 20:13 puts this command in God’s mouth:

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Based on this, Phillips and all Bible-believing Christians and Jews have the religious right to not only refuse to do business with gay men, they have the religious right to kill gay men.

Many Christians think that Jesus removed people from living according to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament laws. This is not the case as is seen in Matthew 5:17-18 which says that Jesus said (IF Jesus really existed as a mere mortal, he did not write anything himself and all that is written about him is hearsay which was written about 40 years after it is claimed Jesus was executed):

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Since heaven and Earth have not passed, based on this teaching attributed to Jesus, the cruel and brutal Hebrew Bible/Old Testament laws are still in effect.

If Jesus really did exist, he was living under the delusion that he was the Son of God who would return to Earth during the lifetime of those people he was speaking to. We see this in several parts of the Gospels including in Mark 9:1 which says that Jesus said:

And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.

Jesus, or the author of Mark 9:1, was wrong.

The writers of the Bible also attacked lesbians. Romans 1:26 teaches:

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.

Prior to the fall of ancient Rome, homosexuality did not matter much to people living in the Roman Empire. Ancient Greece, likewise, did not put much importance on the sex lives of people. There was even an elite Greek army regiment made up of 150 gay male couples which was known as the Sacred Band of Thebes. They played a critical role in the Greek victory in the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE.

If Jack Phillips was not living under the delusion that the Christian Bible is the Word of God, the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission never would have come about. It is the belief that certain books which were authored by men are actually the Word of God that is causing so many problems in the world today. From Jews believing God chose them “above all people that are upon the face of the Earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6) and that God gave them a gift of real estate in the Middle East, to Christian parents believing the Bible-based superstition of faith healing which causes them to withhold medical care from their children and letting them die, to Muslims believing God wants Muslim men to scourge/beat women who they fear may become rebellious towards them (Quran 4:34), the root cause of much misery in the world today is belief in ancient superstitions written by men and falsely claimed to be the Word of God.

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Robert L. Johnson's picture
Columns on STR: 94

Robert Johnson is a paralegal and a freelance writer in Florida. He was raised Roman Catholic, but after reading Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason, he became a Deist. In 1993 he founded the World Union of Deists and in 1996 he launched the first web site devoted to Deism, www.deism.com.  He is listed in Who's Who in Hell and is the author of Deism: A Revolution in Religion, A Revolution in You and An Answer to C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.  He wrote the introduction to The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition and also writes for Examiner.com.

Comments

Jim Davies's picture

"The root of the problem that has caused this case to arise is not politics or government, but religion."
 
Silly though his beliefs may be, doesn't Mr Phillips have the right to believe what he wants, and to serve whomever he wants?
 
There are plenty of bakers. Mullins and Craig could have picked any. I suspect they chose Phillips' so as to pursue a political agenda.
 
Due respect, but I don't agree this was about religion. It was about whether you and I and Mr Phillips are owned by ourselves respectively, or by the State. Market anarchists acknowledge the self-ownership axiom. SCOTUS disagrees, and so does Mike Pence. Surprise, surprise.
 
 

Samarami's picture

Absolutely agree.

Thiswithout doubt (in my mind, at least), is one segment of ongoing "social engineering", of which all the sex agenda serve valuably. Sex is the unholy sacred cow of social engineering.

Sam

Mark Davis's picture

The real problem with this case is a lack of respect for property rights. Cases like this are purposely used by statists to impose and expand state power over private property and thus subjugating property owners resulting in defacto ownership of all property by the state. A business (property) owner should be able to refuse service to anybody for any reason whether or not anybody else believes it to be rational or irrational.
 
I've been an atheist for a long time but I'm still sympathic to the beliefs of Deists, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, and other philosophical manifestations of the human mind seeking spiritual guidance and/or fulfillment. I believe that these religious philosophies each have positive and negative aspects with some being more positive overall (Deism, Buddhism, and Christianity) and others more negative overall (Islam and Satanism). The evolution of Christianity is inherently intertwined with the development of Western Civilization that gave us both the modern state and free-markets. I see the glorification of guilt as the biggest inspiration as well as the biggest problem with Christian philosophy as it both causes intense self-reflection and psychological self-mutilation. Anyway, this case is (as Jim points out above) about a political agenda that is targeting primarily property rights, but also the Christian religious beliefs that spawned them and continue to support them.
 
Also, one does not have to be religious in order to have a limited tolerance for behavior that one finds rude, disgusting or perverted. When these feelings manifest in behavior that results in non-violent actions such as shunning, which is the basis of freedom of association, then there should be no problem (find somebody else to bake your cake); it is only when the reactions become violent and people seek out and punish those they have disdain for that a real problem arises (beating up gays).

Samarami's picture
    "...one does not have to be religious in order to have a limited tolerance for behavior that one finds rude, disgusting or perverted..."

OK, Fellahs, I'm a' comin' out: I'm a gay man. Actually, I have no need to "come out" -- I've been out forever. I'm gay -- except for those times that I'm morose, downcast or grumpy.

Incidentally, I'm not "homosexual" in any sense of that agendum. That'd be a bit awkward, since I'm father of 7, grandpa of 26, great-grandpa of many and counting.

I have no tolerance for the social engineers to usurp a perfectly adequate descriptor of emotion as "gay". But, somehow, they've made that euphemism for "...rude, disgusting or perverted..." behavior almost a mandate -- you can be charged by the white man with "hate crimes" by even implying that you do not believe that anybody, man or woman, is homosexual... that that is a behavior, nothing more.

Oh, me. What a messed up world. Glad I live in a sovereign state. Sam

Paul's picture

"If Jack Phillips was not living under the delusion that the Christian Bible is the Word of God, the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission never would have come about."

Not necessarily. Maybe an atheist version of Jack just wouldn't like being told who he has to associate with. At base, these are not disputes about religion, but about association. Forced association. A variety of property rights, as Mark noted.

"Based on this, Phillips and all Bible-believing Christians and Jews have the religious right to not only refuse to do business with gay men, they have the religious right to kill gay men."

Maybe so. But presumably, they figure refusing to do business, is good enough to keep them in God's good graces; otherwise there would be a lot more dead gays out there. And if they think they have the right to kill, it doesn't matter as long as it remains a thought. You can't reasonably punish anyone for having "bad" thoughts. Hell, there are some bastards out there I'd like to kill too.

This old article of mine might be worth a look:
http://strike-the-root.com/dehumanizing-people-is-fun