The solution to the Indiana controversy about homosexual couples and Christian bakers is simple, straightforward and unambiguous: the free exercise of religion is in the Constitution, homosexuality isn’t. Game over.
In any showdown between an explicit constitutional right and a fictional, man-made “right,” the Constitution wins every time.
This is true whether we are talking about the Constitution of the United States or the constitution of the state of Indiana, which has a strong religious liberty plank.
The first phrase in the very first amendment of the federal constitution flatly prohibits Congress or any branch of the federal government from “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. Note this is not restricted to religious belief or even to religious worship. It is a reference to the exercise of religious faith.
This is constitutional right that every American possesses 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is not reserved just for what goes on in a man’s heart or what goes on in his church from 11:00 am to noon on Sundays.
No, it is one of the “unalienable rights” given to man by his Creator. Because it is a right we have received from God himself, it is indissolubly attached to us. No human agency on earth, including government, has the moral authority to strip it from us.
In fact, the Founders understood that it is the duty of government to “secure” the rights that the Creator has given to us.
So the very first liberty which government has a sacred duty to protect is the freedom to exercise our religious convictions without government interference. This is exactly what Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) does.
Now you can read through the Constitution from front to back, from back to front, upside down and in Sanskrit and you will not find the word “homosexuality” in there anywhere. It doesn’t exist. In other words, unless the American people in their folly amend it, it is impossible for there to be a constitutional right to engage in homosexuality or to force others to endorse it. It is legally and historically impossible.
The Indiana constitution is even more emphatic than the federal one (emphasis mine): “No law shall, in any case whatever, control the free exercise and enjoyment of religious opinions, or interfere with the rights of conscience.”
“Any case whatever” obviously includes a Christian baker getting a request from a homosexual couple for a wedding cake. He is guaranteed by the Indiana constitution the right to “the free exercise” of his “religious opinions,” which in his case includes the opinion that marriage is exclusively and by God’s design a man-woman institution.
And not only is it his religious opinion, it is also a conviction of his conscience. To be forced to bake a cake that sends a message with which he profoundly disagrees is nothing but tyranny and slavery in addition to being flatly and egregiously immoral and unconstitutional.
There’s no use trying to wedge homosexuality in under the 14th Amendment, for the simple reason that homosexual conduct was a felony in every state of the Union when it was adopted. It is historically impossible that the framers of the 14th Amendment intended it to legitimize the infamous crime against nature. The 14th Amendment was about ending slavery, not authorizing aberrant forms of sexual behavior.
In fact, it is morally impossible that there can ever be a right to engage in homosexual behavior. The state may foolishly grant that as a privilege but it can never be a right.
This is because rights come from God and God alone. It is inconceivable that the Creator would ever endorse homosexual conduct, because he condemns it from the first book of the Bible to the last. It can never be an unalienable right which government is bound to protect.
So when a homosexual couple walks into a Christian-run bakery in Indiana, the baker has a fundamental constitutional right to the free exercise of his religion. The gay couple, on the other hand, does not have a fundamental constitutional right to engage in sodomy or to force others to approve. The baker has a titanium shield, the homosexual couple has a rubber knife.
Constitutional, God-given rights trump man-made preferences every single time. Indiana’s RFRA does not need to be “clarified,” it only needs to be implemented. It does not need to be amended, it only needs to be defended. Case closed.
